


present day

by cautiouslyoptimistic



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:14:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22993798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cautiouslyoptimistic/pseuds/cautiouslyoptimistic
Summary: “do you think the new school will be scary?” lexa asked her, her eyes wideor, childhood friends clarke and lexa absolutely hate each other thank you very much. totally, definitely hate each other
Relationships: Clarke Griffin/Lexa
Comments: 29
Kudos: 355





	present day

**Author's Note:**

> hi yes disclaimer I used to write under theahhamoment/transientpermanence and am now attempting to reupload all my deleted fics. this one is one of my favorites

_Seventeen years previously…_

“Do you think the new school will be scary?” Lexa asked her, her eyes wide. Clarke, who had wanted to ask Lexa the very same question, just shrugged.

“It’s so big,” she said after a long silence, and Lexa nodded, flopping onto her back and staring up at the sky. They were on a her trampoline that her uncle had set up for her earlier in the summer, but what had once been a source of joy and excitement now only made Clarke sad. “Are you scared?” she asked quietly.

“No.” Lexa’s answer was immediate, sure, and Clarke flopped onto her back as well, though she turned her head to stare at Lexa.

“How do you know?”

“You’ll be there.” Lexa shifted so that she was on her side, and she gave Clarke a smile. “Best friends?”

“Yeah, always.”

_Twelve years previously…_

“You’re such an asshole!”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah!”

“Yeah. I am.” Lexa smirked, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back in her chair. Clarke stood over her, dripping wet, clothes clinging to her frame, a puddle of water forming at her feet, filled with righteous indignation and a pounding desire to retaliate.

“Proud of it, are you?” she hissed, clenching her fists.

“Well, I mean, that’s like saying you’re proud of being able to blink.” Lexa merely snorted when Clarke gave her a filthy look in response. “You do it without really thinking about it.” She winked, and Clarke was honestly ready to kill her. There was no one— _no one_ —she hated more than Lexa.

“Would it kill you to not be such a _child_? Just once?”

“Me? You’re the one who told everyone in school I’m allergic to nuts.”

“Because you are, you dumbass! Excuse me for wanting to avoid anaphylaxis.” Lexa rolled her eyes in response, getting to her feet and poking Clarke hard in the sternum.

“You’re not the one who had to deal with the stupid jokes all week.”

“That wasn’t my fault. Murphy only made up half those jokes because you always make fun of him.” Clarke stepped back as Lexa stepped closer. She wasn’t afraid of the other girl, not really. She’d basically grown up with her—she knew for a fact that Lexa’s toughness was all an act. After all, she’d been there when Lexa burst into tears the day her uncle got her a puppy. She wasn’t afraid of Lexa—she wasn’t, _really_ —but she’d also seen the black eye she’d given Murphy after he made the mistake of telling Lexa the jokes he’d crafted to her face.

“Doesn’t it get a little tiring, always having to have the last word?”

“You would know, wouldn’t you?” They stared at each other hard, faces barely an inch apart, quite possibly the closest they’d ever gotten to a full blown physical brawl, when they were saved by the appearance of Clarke’s father.

“I know you said you wanted a burger, Lexa, so I managed to pilfer one from your uncle, I’m sure he won’t noti—Clarke, why are you wet?” he cut himself off as he looked up from the plate of food in his hand, looking torn between laughing and exasperation. Lexa took the plate gratefully, biting into the burger with an exaggerated flourish (most likely for Clarke’s sake, as her own father hadn’t bothered to get her anything to eat, the traitor), before raising her eyebrows querulously.

“I was asking her the same thing, Mr. Griffin,” she said in between her mouthful of burger. “This is a work event, Clarke. You know better.” Clarke gritted her teeth, but rather than snap at Lexa, she turned to her father with a forced smile.

“I tripped,” she lied, catching the look of surprise on Lexa’s face out of the corner of her eye. “Tripped and got caught up in the sprinklers.” Her father sighed, though he still looked highly amused.

“Lexa’s right, this is a work event.”

“This is a barbecue in our backyard.”

“With people I work with,” her father added, shrugging. “Go change, Clarke. And avoid the sprinklers, okay?” Clarke nodded, but for the rest of the afternoon, she ignored every single one of Lexa’s attempts to talk to her. 

_Seven years previously…_

When her father told her the news, Clarke had felt nothing but a terrible sorrow. She cancelled plans with her friends and locked herself up in her room, huddled amongst her covers and surrounded by her pillows—creating a fort, creating a wall, wanting to feel safe—and she scrolled through her contacts until she found the one she never thought she’d have a reason to use (not again, not after the way things ended in high school).

It rang and rang and finally went to voicemail, and Clarke wanted nothing more than to hang up—than to pretend she’d done enough and just give up. Instead, she spoke.

“Hey Lexa. It’s Clarke. Um, you know. The one who cut off a chunk of your hair in third grade?” She paused, wincing. What was she doing? “I’m sorry for that, by the way. I don’t know if I ever said it. And I’m also sorry about your uncle…my dad told me today. If there’s anything I can do, just…I know I wasn’t ever nice, but if you need someone, call me, okay? I promise not to cut off your hair again.” She winced again, feeling stupid. “I hope you’re doing okay, Lexa. And I’m so sorry. Um, right. Well, bye then.” She hung up, cheeks flaming, hoping that there would be small mercies and Lexa had changed her number since leaving high school.

(No such luck: she got a text the very next day, four short words that let Clarke know in no uncertain terms that Lexa didn’t need or want her help or ‘sorrys.’)

( _Thank you. I’m fine._ ) 

Clarke didn’t call again.

_One year previously…_

“ _So…how’s the residency going? Glad to nearly be done_?” her father asked, and even through the phone, she could hear his smile. She could also hear her mother attempting to steal the phone, hear the two of them struggle over who got precedence during the call.

“It’s fine. Tell Mom it’s fine. I like the other doctors and I like the kids.”

“ _Your mother says she still thinks you’re better suited to surgery_.”

“Tell my mother she’s a few years too late and that I’m still not crazy enough for that.” She heard her mother’s snort of offense—Clarke belatedly realized she must be on speaker—and her father’s booming laugh.

“ _She’s going to have to disown you now, you know that right, Clarke_?” he asked, and Clarke just rolled her eyes as her mother sputtered indignantly. “ _So what’re you doing right now_?” Clarke shifted the phone to her other ear, unlocking the door to her apartment, fumbling only slightly with the bag of groceries in her hand, and nearly heaving a sigh of relief when she entered her home.

“I’m about to have dinner. Then I’m going to bed.”

“ _So you have a few minutes to talk_?” Her dad, who never asked if she had time to talk, just sort of assumed she did, was acting awfully cagey, and Clarke felt suspicious almost immediately.

“What’s going on?” she asked, not bothering to answer his question.

“ _You remember Lexa_?”

“Yeah, sure. She’s only been my nemesis since the seventh grade.”

“ _It’s good to see you acting your age, Clarke_ ,” her mother called, and Clarke rolled her eyes, closing her door, toeing off her shoes, dumping her groceries on the table, and then heading straight for the couch.

“Right, sorry,” she said, not sorry at all, “what about Lexa?” There was a pause, and Clarke sighed, wondering why her parents were determined to be so dramatic all the time.

“ _She’s going to take over the business, Clarke_ ,” her father finally said. “ _She’ll be getting my shares_.” 

“Is that something you wanted to do, or did she—”

“ _Oh! No, I mean, yes. I’m giving them quite happily. Lexa…she’s quite the entrepreneur_.” 

“So…what does this have to do with me?”

“ _Well, technically, the plan was always that my shares would go to you. I wanted to make sure this was okay with you_.” Clarke leaned her head back, closing her eyes.

“I’m not a businessman, Dad.”

“ _I know, but_ —”

“Do you want to tell me what this is really about?” This time, there was no pause. In fact, it was as if her father was just waiting for the chance to come completely clean.

“ _I promised Lexa’s uncle that I’d take care of her. I don’t think I did a very good job of it. But at least financially, I can keep her secure_.”

“What do you mean, ‘at least financially?’” It was her mother who answered, not her father.

“ _Lexa has changed quite a bit since you saw her last. I think even you’d have trouble recognizing her_.” Clarke opened her eyes, sitting up carefully, hearing something in both their tones that she didn’t like.

“Why are you doing this now? As if—” She cut herself off, unable to even voice her fear. The silence on the other end of the line, however, is damning.

“ _Well, about that_ ,” her father began. “ _Clarke, there was something else we wanted to tell you_.”

_Six months previously…_

It was all cliché.

The rain, the umbrellas, the squelch of her shoes against the sodden grass, that one person who forgot their raincoat and was soaked through, the ugly flowers, and the even uglier whispering of the two men in the back who Clarke was rather sure hadn’t even _known_ her father.

She hated it.

Her mother was sobbing, her friends consoling her, allowing her to hold onto them tightly (so tightly that Clarke was sure she was cutting off circulation, breaking bones, popping vessels and causing bruises). There was Kane, her father’s so-called best friend (he hadn’t even bothered to visit after the diagnosis). There was Jaha, mumbling on about how ‘great Jake was’ (as if he didn’t remember all the arguments he started with her father, the weeks he spent passive aggressively ignoring her father’s calls).

Her own friends were there too. Her college roommate, Raven, stood far in the back, looking ready to come to Clarke’s side at a moment’s notice. There was Wells, hanging his head, most likely hiding his tears. Lincoln, a fellow resident, stood stoically next to his girlfriend, both of them only there for her and the stories she’d told them about her father.

It kept raining as the service ended, kept raining as everyone began to shuffle off, kept raining as Clarke was left alone at her father’s grave, her feet somehow stuck in the ground (or at least, that’s what it felt like, because she couldn’t move—she just couldn’t).

She didn’t notice her at first, so focused was she on the ground and her futile attempts to move her legs, so she jumped slightly when she felt a hand at her elbow.

(Her mother hadn’t lied—if not for the fact that Clarke had grown up with her, Lexa would’ve been unrecognizable. The softness of her cheeks was gone, the smirk on her lips had faded, the light in her eyes had been extinguished. She was hard and cold and Clarke was still not afraid of her.)

“You came,” she found herself saying, proud that her voiced only wavered slightly. Lexa nodded, eyes roving over Clarke’s face for a moment before focusing on her eyes.

“Your father was a great man.” Lexa shrugged a little, like she knew her statement was obvious but she could do no better. “Come on, Clarke. Let’s get you out of the rain.”

Blindly, Clarke followed Lexa’s lead, but later—when she found herself in her childhood bedroom, surrounded by her covers and pillows and not feeling safe at all—she didn’t bother with calling Lexa to thank her. 

_Present day…_

“The Will is very explicit, Miss Griffin.” The lawyer was clearly annoyed, and Clarke couldn’t exactly _blame_ her. She was, after all, being annoying. “You’re to spend six months with Miss Woods, supervising the company, before the sale of the shares can go through.”

“But I don’t want to do that. I have a job, a life. She can take the shares, I’m sure Lexa’s doing a great job.” Lexa, who was sitting at her desk, working diligently, looked up at the sound of her name and frowned.

“Is she still arguing?” she asked, looking to the lawyer instead of Clarke, and memories of the ninth grade popped into her mind, unbidden. Like of the time she and Lexa were both given three days worth of detention for causing a minor explosion in the science hall and Lexa had spent the entire first day they were alone in the classroom together chatting away with the teacher who’d punished them in the first place, somehow managing to escape the rest of the sentence. “There’s nothing to do but accept it,” Lexa said, finally facing Clarke, a tired sigh escaping her. “So sign the papers and let Miss Green get on with her day.”

“You would be so blasé about it. The only person who benefits from this is you.” 

“I didn’t ask your father for his shares, and I certainly don’t expect you to honor his wishes. If you want, just walk away.” Clarke stiffened, and Lexa must have known she went too far because she let out another sigh and continued. “I just meant that this isn’t something I expect from you, Clarke. I didn’t mean—” She stopped, clearly unwilling to explain what she had meant. (Perhaps she was suggesting that Clarke could let this go because she’d gone against her father’s wishes before. Perhaps she was suggesting that this was like high school, like college, like a year ago. But honestly, Clarke didn’t care what Lexa was suggesting, just that what she said rank of a challenge.)

“Do I have to be here all the time?”

“No,” the lawyer said, looking relieved at the change in Clarke’s tone. “It’s all very informal. You can keep your own job and have a life outside the company. The Will just stipulates that you oversee day-to-day matters, however you see fit.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” the lawyer and Lexa muttered at the same time, the former looking close to pulling out champagne, the latter just confused.

“Yes, all right.” She frowned and rolled her eyes when she just continued to get the blank looks. “Contrary to what Lexa thinks, I’m not a monster. My dad wanted the shares to go to her, the shares will go to her. Just tell me where to sign.” The lawyer grinned widely then, pushing the papers towards Clarke, pointing to the line where she was supposed to sign, indicating where she required Clarke’s initials, then mumbling under her breath about how, even for a doctor, her handwriting was ugly. Lexa, though, was staring at Clarke with narrowed eyes and pursed lips.

“I never said you were a monster.”

“I never said you said it,” Clarke muttered, practically growling when the lawyer mumbled something about ‘chicken scratch’ under her breath. “I just said you think it.”

“I don’t think you’re a monster, either.” That made Clarke look away from the papers and focus on Lexa, curious despite herself. For her part, Lexa seemed to regret speaking at all.

“So all the pranks and teasing and taunts? You did it for what, fun?”

“Quit acting like you didn’t give back as good as you got. Besides, we were teenagers.”

“Dr. Griffin, if I can’t read your signature—”

“—yes, I realize my signature is not up to your standards, Ms. Green. I’m terribly sorry, do you want to start all over?” Clarke asked, raising her eyebrows, eyes snapping back to the lawyer. Lexa groaned.

“Please don’t give her an excuse to walk away, Indra,” she said, looking close to rolling her eyes (for the first time almost resembling the Lexa Clarke once knew). “The signature is fine.”

“I’ll have you both know, the pharmacists at the hospital can read my writing just fine. More than one of them have said that mine is probably the neatest at the hospital.” The lawyer—Indra Green, sass extraordinaire, apparently—snorted.

“Dr. Griffin, being the best of the very worst isn’t much of an accomplishment.”

“If you’re quite done, Ms. Green,” Clarke said, crossing her arms over her chest. “If that’s all, I’ll just be going—”

“—actually,” Lexa interrupted, giving Indra a pleading look when she seemed ready to say something else, “I’d like to have a word alone with you, if you don’t mind.” The statement (or demand, it surely wasn’t a question) was clearly directed to Indra, and the older woman let out a long-suffering sigh and gathered the papers, placing them neatly in her briefcase and getting to her feet.

“I look forward to working with you, Dr. Griffin,” she said, sounding anything but excited at the prospect. With one last look at Lexa, she left them alone in the office, and Clarke had nothing to distract herself with in order to keep from thinking what had happened to Lexa to make her so… _different._

“I wasn’t surprised when your dad told me you had gone to medical school, you know,” Lexa said, standing and circling to the front of her desk, leaning against it heavily. She looked tired; there were bags under her eyes, her skin seemed pale, a weariness to the stiffness of her shoulders.

“I wasn’t surprised when he told me you took over for your uncle.” Lexa met Clarke’s eyes at the mention of her uncle, just briefly, and then resumed staring at the floor.

“Clarke…” she began, a white-knuckled grip on the edge of her desk, a new hardness settling in onto her features, “I know you don’t want to be here. I know you don’t like me very much—”

“— _we,_ ” Clarke corrected. “We don’t like each other. If you remember.”

“True,” Lexa said, meeting Clarke’s gaze once more, this time a smile appearing on her face, something flashing in her eyes before it was gone. “We don’t like each other very much, but I….” She trailed off, pushing herself off her desk and shrugging just a little helplessly—much like she had at the funeral. “This company is important to me. I’d go as far as to say it’s everything to me. I just…thank you for doing this. I know it isn’t easy for you.” For a second, Clarke just stared at her, unsure how to respond. This Lexa, this woman in front of her, was not the one who ruined her life as teenagers, was not the one who refused to ask for help after her uncle’s death, was not the one who lead her out of the rain after Clarke’s father was buried. And honestly, Clarke didn’t know how to act around _this_ Lexa (though perhaps, if she were truly to be honest, she’d never quite known how to act around Lexa). 

“Do you remember in fifth grade we used to eat lunch beneath the mulberry tree?” she asked, leaning forward in her chair, elbows propped on her knees. Lexa looked startled by the question, but she nodded, not looking away. “Do you remember how one afternoon we picked all the berries, washed them in the teacher’s lounge, then spent all of class eating them?”

“Yeah,” she said with a small smile tugging at her lips. “I also remember the vomiting. But what does that have to do with now?”

“Can you imagine? We were friends once, vomited together once. If I could deal with that, I can deal with six months of ‘informal’ time spent together.” Lexa looked ready to argue, but Clarke didn’t give her a chance, speaking over her easily. “You don’t owe me anything, Lexa. Certainly not a thank you. Though maybe an apology wouldn’t hurt.”

“Oh yeah? For what?”

“For everything you put me through.”

“That’s not how it works,” Lexa laughed, shaking her head, the tension in her shoulders dissipating. “I’ll apologize to you when you apologize to me.”

“Me? What did I do?”

“You started it,” Lexa said, eyes flashing once more before she looked away. A part of Clarke was terribly jealous; had _she_ said that, she would’ve sounded childish, but Lexa just sounded wounded. And if Clarke didn’t know any better—if she didn’t remember with fine detail exactly what happened to start their stupid war, to make them nemeses—well, she’d say Lexa was actually sad.

But that wasn’t possible.

If there was one thing she knew for a fact, it was that Lexa Woods had never, _ever_ been sad about what happened between them.

//

“It sounds like she’s trying,” Lincoln said, stirring the sauce before raising the spoon to his mouth and tasting it. His eyebrows scrunched together and his nose crinkled, but then he grinned, handing the spoon over to his girlfriend, Octavia, who stared at the sauce doubtfully. “Maybe you should try too.”

“You don’t know her,” Clarke complained, narrowing her eyes at Octavia, not exactly in the mood to hear her comment about Clarke’s nonexistent talent in the kitchen. “This is a ruse, it has to be.”

“You sound paranoid, Clarke.”

“Says the woman who won’t eat my food.”

“Learn to cook, then I’ll eat your food.”

“Octavia, seriously, it tastes fine.”

“Clarke, _seriously,_ ” Octavia imitated, chuckling a little, “you buy the pasta sauce in a jar. What do you do to it to make it…like that?”

“Maybe Lexa is trying to start new with you. You’re doing her a massive favor by agreeing to this, after all,” Lincoln tried, attempting to ignore the fact that Octavia was waving the spoon around, sticking her tongue out at Clarke from behind him.

“Maybe,” Octavia said, raising her eyebrows and pulling out a chair at the table before collapsing into it heavily, “Clarke doesn’t hate Lexa as much as she’d like us to think.”

“What? What does that even mean?”

“It means what I said. I’ve known you for what? Three, four years? Raven twice that? In all that time, can you guess who you’ve talked about more than anyone else?”

“I haven’t even spoken to Lexa in years.”

“Those first loves, they can be so difficult to move on from,” Octavia sighed dramatically. “But really, when did you fall in love with her?”

“Octavia, you don’t understand. I _hated_ her.” At Octavia’s raised eyebrow, she fixed the statement. “I _hate_ her. I do. She ruined my artwork, made up stories about me, was always out to beat me in everything. She joined debate just because she wanted an excuse to argue with me.”

“So you say.”

“So Lexa said.”

“Clarke, you’re my favorite emotionally stunted doctor,” Octavia said, ignoring Lincoln’s soft huff of protest, “but this is just sad. Is this why you and that Finn guy didn’t work out?”

“Finn was an asshole,” Lincoln said, crossing his arms over his chest. “He put Clarke through hell.”

“What about the Niylah? The girl who was good with computers?” Octavia asked, undeterred.

“She wasn’t right for me,” Clarke protested when even Lincoln gave her an amused look.

“Because she wasn’t Lexa?”

“No. Stop, I’m not doing this.” She held up her hands, shaking her head, feeling a headache come on. “My life has been one cliché after another. But not in this. There is absolutely no way I’m in love with Lexa Woods. Okay?”

“Do you mind if I order pizza, Clarke?” Octavia asked, acting as if the conversation never happened (one reason of many that Clarke liked her so much). “Your food is going to be inedible.” (Then again, there was also that long list of why Clarke didn’t like her at all.)

_Fourteen years previously…_

“Clarke, can I ask you an honest question?” Clarke tugged on her sweater, pulling it more tightly around her shoulders, making sure not to look away from the window. A few students to the front of the bus threw paper balls at each other, another had fallen asleep, taking up an entire row by himself. And Clarke, well, she had the honor of sitting next to _Lexa._

“No,” she said, still not looking away from the window. The bus hobbled on down the street, passing over a bump, sending students flying. The boy who’d been asleep woke up with a growl, staring at the bus driver with a look that promised vengeance. Clarke idly wondered if her dad wouldn’t mind picking her up from school in the afternoon—or perhaps she could just walk home. Anything would be preferable to _this_.

“Come on, Clarke. One question?”

“Fine, what?” She turned to Lexa and that was her mistake. It was always harder to stand up to the other girl when she could see the green eyes.

“Are you excited about the first day of high school?”

“Are you?”

“That’s not how this works, Clarke. You can’t answer a question with a question.”

“Fine. No, I’m not excited, okay?”

“Yeah,” Lexa said, nodding as if she expected this answer. “I’m not either.” She smiled then, bumping shoulders lightly. “On the bright side, I’ll be there to annoy you, and you’ll be there to annoy me, so we’ll never get bored.” 

“I wonder how things would be different if we were still friends.” She regretted the words as soon as she said them, not because they were mean or said dryly or because it was all she could ever think about and she hated the idea that now Lexa knew that too. No, she regretted the words because it made Lexa look away, and if there was anything Clarke hated more than looking into Lexa’s eyes, it was that pang in her chest when Lexa was no longer willing to meet her gaze.

“Not that different,” Lexa muttered, leaning back in the seat, closing her eyes. “I’d still annoy you and you’d still annoy me, but we’d call it teasing instead.”

“Well, I guess I prefer ‘not bored’ to ‘teased’ anyway,” Clarke said, turning to face the window once more. Lexa just laughed, and the boy—who’d somehow managed to get back to sleep—let out a loud snore.

_Present day…_

“Excited about your first day?” Lexa asked, getting to her feet the second Clarke entered her office. Her hands were clasped behind her ramrod straight back, her hair was perfectly braided, her suit perfectly pressed, and yet her glasses sat a little lopsided on her face. With a grimace, Clarke stepped forward, reached out slowly, and straightened the frames, keeping her gaze on Lexa’s nose rather than her eyes. (Old habits died hard, apparently.)

“No,” she answered as she stepped back, swallowing hard. “I haven’t been excited about first days since we were eleven.”

“Me neither,” Lexa lied, clearly attempting to put Clarke at ease. Shamefully, it was working. “There’s nothing to be nervous about, of course.”

“I never said I was nervous, just that I wasn’t excited. This isn’t my field, after all.”

“Fair enough. How would you like to do this? We can empty out an office for you, set you up—”

“I’d rather stay with you, actually.” She cleared her throat when all she got in response was a wide-eyed look. “It’s just that…the shares go to you. You’re in charge. I’ll observe plenty by sticking with you.”

“All right. That’s…fine.” It sounded like it was anything but fine, but there was no one to come to Lexa’s rescue. Indra Green wasn’t around to put Lexa at ease with comments about Clarke’s handwriting. (It was nice, really, to have Lexa be on her toes for a change.) “I actually have a meeting in half an hour. Is that something you want to observe?”

“Absolutely.”

“All right,” Lexa repeated, letting out a tiny cough. “Well, I guess this isn’t going to be boring.” When Clarke just stared at her, Lexa smiled a little, looking close to rolling her eyes. “You’re going to spend the next six months driving me crazy, aren’t you? Payback, right? Still upset that I had the last word in high school?”

“I have _no_ idea what you’re talking about,” Clarke said, words belied by her grin and wink. Lexa stared at her for a moment, then shook her head, picking up her bag and pulling on her suit jacket.

“It’s almost like you never left,” she said, not meeting Clarke’s eyes.

(And Clarke, well, she hated her for it.)

XXX

_Present day…_

“So, Lexa. Who’s the kid?” Lexa, cup raised to her lips, clearly mid-sip, nearly choked on her hot coffee, spluttering a little before the panic and shock was erased and replaced by a look that exuded confidence and calm. (And Clarke…well, she smirked a little, enjoying Lexa’s slip into being a normal human far more than she probably should have—after all, it wasn’t exactly _professional_ of her.) 

“You went through my things,” she stated tonelessly, raising an eyebrow. It’d have been more impressive if there wasn’t a little dribble of coffee on her chin.

“Guilty as charged,” Clarke said, reluctantly pushing herself out of Lexa’s comfortable chair and stepping towards her nemesis. (She felt only a little ridiculous when she referred to Lexa that way in her head. Mostly, she felt vindicated.) With a sigh, she used the sleeve of her sweater to wipe the coffee on Lexa’s chin, not quite caring about the stain or Lexa’s wide eyes. To be honest, the wide eyes were what made her straighten Lexa’s glasses as well, grinning just a little.

“You can’t dig through my things,” Lexa said after swallowing hard, her brows furrowing in confusion. “It’s a violation of my privacy.”

“I was looking for a pen.”

“Were the vast array of pens on my desk not suitable for you?”

“I have to admit, I thought you’d have better pen standards, it’s true.”

“Clarke.”

“ _Lexa_.”

“You can’t dig through my things,” she repeated, brushing past Clarke and placing her coffee cup on her desk. “And the boy is really none of your concern.”

“Is he your son? Are you with someone, Lexa?” Clarke paused, horrified by the very thought. “You managed to get some girl to raise a family with you? _How_?”

“Please,” Lexa said, rolling her eyes and waving her hand disinterestedly, looking like an older version of her high school self, so much so that Clarke momentarily felt like she was back in high school and the principal was about to step in at any moment and punish them for ‘fighting _again_.’

“Was that a ‘please, of course someone would want to raise a family with me’ or a ‘please, don’t be so silly, children would run from the very sight of me’ sort of thing?”

“It was a ‘please get back to work.’ You’re here for a reason, not to learn more about my personal life.”

“Ah, so it is personal. He’s not just some kind you’re holding hostage for leverage against a CEO or something.”

“What do you think we do here?” Lexa asked incredulously before looking like she regretted speaking at all. Her mouth snapped shut and she moved to sit at her desk, hands clasped in front of her, eyes not wavering from Clarke’s. (It was annoying, really, how quickly Lexa seemed to find her feet around Clarke; she sort of missed Lexa’s inability to meet her gaze from the week before, it had made Lexa seem more human.) “Not that it’s any business of yours,” Lexa began primly, straightening the papers scattered on her desk, moving around a pen, the entire time maintaining vaguely uncomfortable eye contact, “but to answer your question, no, the boy in the picture is not my son. But he’s as good as.” Clarke opened and closed her mouth a few times, the words she wanted to say dying in her throat. Finally, when Lexa’s stiff expression became more amused, Clarke found her voice.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her turn to look down, biting her lip. “You’re right, I should’ve have dug into your personal life.” She turned to leave, startled when Lexa called her back.

“I answered only one of your questions,” she said, shocking Clarke enough that she turned away from the floor. “No, I’m not with someone. But yes, I had managed to convince a girl to raise a family with me. In fact, it’d been her idea.”

Clarke didn’t question the tense; she decided she didn’t want to know.

_Fifteen years previously_ …

“To be honest, I didn’t know your niece knew how to cry,” her father said, rubbing his chin and frowning just a little. “Did she tell you what happened?” He shifted the phone to his other ear, smiling when Clarke placed a scoop of mashed potatoes in his plate, motioning for her to give him extras. “Ah,” he murmured, and Clarke could actually hear Gustus Woods through the phone for a moment, his voice strangely higher than it was in person, his words coming far too quickly for it to be anything but a jumbled mess. (Sometimes, when Lexa was excited, she was the same way, speaking quickly and passionately, words and sentences becoming sloppy and yet somehow…better. Obviously, Clarke hated it. At least Lexa’s normal speech, while terribly annoying and formal, was understandable. Besides, the reminder that Lexa was a person capable of feelings always made things difficult.) 

“It’s not nice to eavesdrop, Clarke,” her mother said, cutting into her chicken and motioning for Clarke to do the same. “It’s none of your business.”

“It’s about Lexa.”

“Still not your business.”

“Do you think I hurt her feelings?” When her father first mentioned ‘the niece,’ she’d worried. She and Lexa hadn’t gotten along in quite some time, and though she’d swear to her dying breath that they were enemies, they’d also never _hurt_ one another. At least, not on purpose (not maliciously and cruelly).

“Did you do something to her today?” her mother asked, tilting her head to the side and studying Clarke closely, clearly searching for a lie.

“No. I mean, nothing worse than usual. She made fun of me for losing the soccer game, I brought up how I’d done better in chemistry. It was all pretty normal.” (Though, to be fair, she _had_ noticed that Lexa seemed more subdued, less enthused in their quarreling.)

“That’s because you didn’t do anything,” her father said with a sigh, putting his phone aside and digging into his dinner with a relish. “Lexa had a fight with her cousin. Apparently, harsh words were exchanged.” 

“Harsh is a nice way of putting Anya, I suppose,” Clarke said carelessly, smearing her potatoes all over her plate and staring at the chicken disinterestedly, suddenly not quite in the mood to eat.

“Why don’t I take you to see if she’s okay?” her father suggested, taking a long sip of his water. “I know you’re not getting along—”

“—an understatement at best—”

“—but you’ve known her for a long time, and you understand her situation with Anya,” her father continued, pretending like he didn’t even hear her. “Her uncle claims he’s never seen her get this upset.”

“What do I get out of this?”

“The satisfaction of doing the right thing,” her mother said, leveling Clarke with a look, clearly daring her to argue.

“But I’ll probably make her more upset,” Clarke whined, ready to go to _extremes_ and smack her head against the table if necessary. “Lexa hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you.”

“She does.”

(Naturally, no one cared what she thought, and half an hour later, she found herself staring into the smiling face of Gustus Woods before she sullenly ascended the stairs and knocked on the door to Lexa’s bedroom.)

(She _dared_ anyone to comment on how she still remembered where Lexa’s bedroom was located.)

“Lexa. Open the door.” (It wouldn’t open, she was _sure_.)

It opened.

“Clarke?” Lexa whispered, her tearstained face visible in the small crack. Her eyebrows were furrowed in confusion (a confusion Clarke shared) and her bottom lip was quivering, as if she was close to crying once more. “What’re you doing here?”

“Do you want to call a truce for tonight and talk about it?”

“Do you promise to pretend this night never happened?” Tempting though it was to say shake her head, Clarke nodded immediately. After a short pause, Lexa opened the door wider and let her in.

(And Clarke…well, she kept her promise. She never mentioned Lexa’s tears or fears, never once breathed a word of the tight hug they shared, never gave any indication the night ever happened.)

(But Clarke…well, she found herself thinking about that night many times over the course of the next few years.)

_Present day…_

The little boy was clearly not very thrilled to be spending his morning with Clarke.

(Though, considering he’d nearly thrown up on her shoes twice now, Clarke would say that feeling was mutual.)

“It’s probably a viral infection. Nothing to do but wait it out. Rest and plenty of fluids,” she told the haggard looking mother, “and he should be fine soon.”

By the time lunch rolled around—sharing a sandwich with Lincoln in the hospital’s cafeteria—Clarke was already exhausted, so naturally, she wasn’t at all thrilled when she walked into Lexa’s office much later in the day, scrubs smelling faintly of disinfectant (and vomit?) reminding her that she was in desperate need of a shower.

Lexa, of course, didn’t seem to notice her sour mood (or smell).

“You’re right on time,” she said without looking up from whatever she was reading. “There’s a meeting in about ten minutes, and I’m sure you’ll want to be there.”

“Yeah, all right.” Lexa must have heard something in her tone, because she looked up at that, a frown on her face.

“Long day?”

“Never let it be said that being a physician is a glorious job. My days consist mostly of gastroenteritis.”

“At least no one with the stomach flu is attempting to steal your job,” Lexa said, probably as a way to comfort her, though extraordinarily, it had the opposite effect. (And Clarke decided she didn’t really want to dwell on why hearing about Lexa’s troubles made her feel shittier rather than better, as it should have. Dwelling was for people who had time to mull and ruminate and Clarke was not one of those people. Really.)

“Who’s trying to steal your job?”

“The one other person who has any shares in this company,” Lexa said, facing Clarke properly, crossing her arms over her chest. “Nia Gelid.”

“Is that a joke or—”

“Yes, Clarke,” Lexa said, suppressing a smile. “That’s her name.”

“So this Nia Gelid. Does she actually pose a threat?” For a moment, Clarke thought Lexa wouldn’t answer, but then Lexa straightened her glasses and cleared her throat awkwardly, gathering the papers she’d been looking over when Clarke walked in before approaching Clarke carefully.

“Nia wants to be the majority shareholder, and if our arrangement doesn’t work out, she will be.”

“I don’t know, Lexa, I’d take potential coup over vomit any day.”

“Coup makes it sound exciting, it’s much more boring than that.” 

Lexa was, of course, right about the boring part. Five minutes into the meeting, Clarke was willing to be vomited on if it just meant she got to _do_ something, and about halfway through the meeting she distracted herself by wondering if anyone would buy it if she just suddenly fainted. Yet, despite its tedious nature, the meeting was nonetheless quite informative: by the end of it, Clarke learned two very interesting (and had she had time to dwell and mull and ruminate, _problematic_ ) things:

One, the senior class president Lexa had nothing on the Lexa who led her company (and it was only white hot anger that raced through her veins as she watched Lexa talk to her employees, remnants of the anger she felt when Lexa beat her in the elections, not _attraction_ of any sort. Seriously.)

Two, she’d once thought there’d be no one she could hate more than Lexa Woods, but Nia Gelid valiantly rose to the challenge and made an ass out of Clarke by proving that assumption to be false. And the hatred she felt for Nia, well, it certainly wasn’t anything like what she’d felt for Lexa.

Not that she’d admit that or anything.

Obviously.

//

When Clarke arrived the next afternoon, Lexa presented her with a cup of coffee, keeping her eyes averted as she mentioned some nonsense about long days and exhaustion.

Clarke wasn’t listening; she just kept wondering why Lexa’s smile wasn’t annoying her as much as it used to.

_Thirteen years previously…_

If Clarke could’ve reached him, she would’ve decked Jasper right in the jaw.

Sadly, with Wells holding her back, it wasn’t quite possible.

“I’m just saying what everyone is thinking, Clarke,” he said, looking quite comfortable and at ease with Wells holding her back. She doubted he’d feel the same way if she was let go. “Lexa is a bitch.”

“Call her that again, and I swear, not even Wells can save you.” Her best friend tugged her even further away from Jasper, seemingly well-aware of the danger she posed.

“Don’t act all high and mighty. You’ve called her that and worse.”

“And what makes you think that gives you any right to say it too? You’d better apologize, Jasper, or I swear, I’ll—”

“—what? Throw paint at me? I don’t even know why you’re defending her, she beat us!”

“At a stupid intramural flag football game! Who gives a shit?”

“I do!”

“Then you’re as fucking dumb as you look.” At that moment, several things happened in quick succession:

First, Jasper called Lexa another name.

Second, Clarke whispered a quick apology and elbowed her best friend hard in the stomach, shocking him long enough that he let go of her, giving her the opportunity to go after Jasper.

Third, Lexa—who’d overheard everything—ran over to prevent Clarke from murdering Jasper.

Fourth, the teacher in charge of intramural sports finally noticed the commotion.

Fifth, Clarke and Lexa were given detention for ‘fighting _again_.’

(It was all worth it the next morning, when the punch Clarke had managed to land turned out to have given him a massive black eye.)

(Lexa never thanked her in words. Instead, Clarke won three debates in a row, and Lexa only rolled her eyes when Clarke brought it up.)

_Present day…_

“So. Aden.” Lexa’s pen scratching against paper immediately ceased, and Clarke watched with some amusement as a series of emotions flickered over Lexa’s face before she settled on slight curiosity.

“You know his name?”

“Ms. Green,” Clarke said by way of explanation, and Lexa let out a sigh, rolling her eyes in the way only she ever could. (Clarke wasn’t fond of it. Really.)

“She’s a traitor. When did you manage to get her on your side?”

“I mean, ‘my side’ might be an exaggeration, but Indra and I get along fine. Ish. She’s stopped mentioning my handwriting at least.”

“You’re practically married,” Lexa said dryly, returning to her work. Clarke, however, was determined. She got up from the small space they set up for her in the corner of Lexa’s office (where it was quickly being filled with old medical school textbooks and old paper coffee cups) and walked over to Lexa’s desk, leaning against it and staring down at her once nemesis.

“You don’t want to talk about Aden?”

“What’s there to talk about?”

“How old is he?” The pen stopped moving once more, but she didn’t look up and her features remained…blank.

“Five,” she said shortly, and Clarke didn’t press further.

//

“ _Having a kid doesn’t make her sketchy,_ ” Raven said, a loud screeching noise following her words. “ _Stop being stupid_.”

“What’re you doing?”

“ _Redecorating_.” The screeching continued, this time accompanied by a loud bang, making Clarke assume Raven knocked something over. “ _Or well,_ ” she huffed into the phone, “ _I should say it’s my_ attempt _at redecorating_.”

“You’re putting unnecessary strain on your leg.”

“ _What’d you promise me?_ ”

“To not doctor you.”

“ _Right_ , _so stop._ ”

“But this isn’t doctoring, this is…friending.”

“ _Clarke?_ ”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sorry.” She shifted, pulling her covers to her chin, burrowing deeper into her pillows. “Raven? Can I admit something to you without you telling Octavia or being annoyingly smug?”

“ _You and Lexa got drunk, one of you proposed, and there was a drive thru wedding?_ ”

“No. I’m cliché, but not _that_ cliché.”

“ _You’re no fun, Griffin. All right then, I promise to not tell Octavia and to not be smug. Admit your deepest, darkest secrets._ ”

“Raven, I…I don’t think I hate her.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Is that surprising?”

“ _No, it’s terribly obvious. I just thought you’d mope and whine and waddle up denial river a little longer than this. I’m missing out on all the angst I’d hoped for._ ”

“So what should I do?”

“ _Um, tell Lexa. Then get drunk, one of you should propose, have that drive thru wedding, and adopt a bunch of cute little kids so that Lexa’s kid won’t be an only child—that shit sucks—naming me their godmother._ ” There was another loud smash, a curse, and then silence before Clarke heard the sound of Raven’s breathing over the phone.

“You alive?”

“ _I am, though the same cannot be said for the bookcase. You’d think I’d be able to defeat furniture, but the damn thing puts up a hell of a fight._ ”

“Are you going to give me real advice regarding Lexa?”

“ _All you said was you don’t think you hate her. There’s no advice to give, Griffin. Figure out how you feel, then tell her._ ” A few more curses followed her words, as well as a repeated and loud pounding, as if someone was kicking the wall. “ _My only advice,_ ” Raven said, panting _,_ “ _is to skip the angst and ‘figuring shit out’ parts. That’s boring. Know what’s fun? Drive thru weddings._ ”

//

Clarke had never really been good at following advice anyway.

(Besides, mulling and ruminating on feelings took precious time away from figuring out new ways to make Lexa smile and attempt to hide that smile.)

(If she was going to be cliché, she might as well just embrace it.)

//

“What’re you doing?”

“Paperwork.”

“Yeah, but for what?”

“Terminations.”

“You’re firing people?”

“That is the definition of a termination, yes.”

“You can’t just fire people.” All she got for her trouble was a small frown, as if Lexa was honestly confused about what Clarke was arguing.

“But I’m in charge.”

“I meant that these people need their jobs. What’d they do to deserve being fired?”

“Nothing,” Lexa answered, leaning back in her chair and rubbing her temples. “But you heard Nia yesterday. We’ve suffered losses, we can’t afford our employees—some have to be laid off.”

“She’s just trying to scare you, make you and me want to sell our shares.”

“And is it working, Clarke?” Lexa asked, looking far too knowing for Clarke’s liking. “Planning on skipping out on our deal?”

“No.”

“Then I’m not worried.”

“But you’ll still lay people off?”

“You think I _want_ to do this?” Lexa snapped, her careful control finally breaking. “You think I get any enjoyment out of this? I’ve worked with these people, half of them have families they’re trying to support, and if I had a choice, I’d keep them all on and make sure they were happy and comfortable forever.” She turned back to the paperwork, apparently regretting her show of emotion. “I can’t afford to be sentimental, I have to be harsh if I want the people who remain here to succeed.”

Clarke didn’t bother with responding, not because she couldn’t understand Lexa’s reasoning, but because she _did_. She understood and she found herself feeling vaguely compromised.

She was rather sure her ‘I don’t think I hate her’ had just turned into an ‘uh oh, I admire her.’ 

(It was quite high on her list of unfortunate things that have happened to her.)

_Twenty years previously…_

They met, of course, on a playground.

They became friends because Clarke cut off a chunk of Lexa’s hair with a pair of safety scissors.

Later, Clarke would say something about how’d it been an accident (though their teacher was understandably skeptical, finding it difficult to accept that one could ‘accidentally’ cut off another’s hair), and the only reason she got away with it was because Lexa backed up her story.

“It was an accident, Mrs. Peters,” she said, nodding a little too violently for it to seem sincere. “It was.”

The next day at lunch, Clarke pushed her prized chocolate pudding towards Lexa.

The rest, as they say, was history.

_Present day…_

She stood outside her father’s old office, staring at the closed door, fingers tapping away against the phone clutched tightly in her hand. Indra Green passed by her twice, both times giving her a look that seemed torn between frustrated and sympathetic, but otherwise, Clarke was left alone, left to stare at the door to her father’s office in utter peace.

She wasn’t quite sure how long she stood out in the hallway, stiff as a statue. It might’ve been days or months (though more realistically, perhaps a quarter of an hour) before she felt a soft hand take hold of her elbow.

“Planning on just standing here or going in?”

“To be honest, I don’t actually know.” Lexa probably hadn’t expected an honest (or serious) response from her and Clarke sort of regretted giving one, but she found herself unable to care.

“I couldn’t even pass by my uncle’s office without wanting to cry,” Lexa confided after a long pause, not releasing Clarke’s elbow. “Can I show you something?” Clarke nodded desperately, needing the distraction, needing to get away, and she allowed Lexa to pull her away from her father’s office and towards the door that led to the stairwell. They went up several flights of stairs before Lexa came to a stop and motioned for Clarke to open the door in front of them. Normally, Clarke would’ve questioned Lexa’s motives, but she was tired, her heart hurt, and she didn’t think anyone understood how she was feeling better than Lexa.

The roof was…a roof. There was nothing special about it, no grand view to look at, no personal touches to show that this was somewhere Lexa frequented. It was just a roof of a building.

(She tried not to let her disappointment show. She failed in that regard, but she did _try_.)

“I’ve come up here three times,” Lexa said suddenly, closing the door to the stairwell and leaning against it. “The first time, I’d just taken over and I was overwhelmed and I missed my uncle.” She smiled a little, did the stupid shrug she was so fond of, and averted her eyes. “I came up here to cry.”

“And the second and third times?” Another shrug, another half-smile. It was all very annoying.

“There are some things that you just don’t need an audience for.” She didn’t elaborate and Clarke didn’t ask her to, not liking how utterly _human_ Lexa sounded and how terribly _fond_ she was of that fact. “My point,” Lexa continued after clearing her throat roughly, “is that I get it. And I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too.”

“Why would you be sorry?”

“Because,” Clarke said, surprised when Lexa met her gaze, feeling a little breathless at the sight, “you get it. No one should get it.”

_Eleven years previously…_

“So Wells claims you and I only argue because of unresolved sexual tension.”

Lexa laughed so hard in response that she nearly fell out of her chair. They got two more days worth of detention for ‘causing a ruckus… _again_.’

_Present day…_

“You seem upset,” Lexa said, breaking the silence abruptly and rather harshly. “Is everything okay?”

“I’m fine.” When Lexa merely stared at her with one raised eyebrow, Clarke relented. “We had to send a kid up to oncology today.”

“I had to spend almost two hours with Nia this morning.” The distraction, offered willingly, was a chance to ignore her own troubles by teasing Lexa’s. But somehow, the distraction—which once would have been _taken_ willingly—just made Clarke smile.

“Did she do that clicking thing with her mouth?”

“A dozen times. I counted.” Suddenly, Lexa was much closer than before, seemingly appearing next to Clarke in the blink of an eye.

“What’re you doing?” Clarke asked, not liking the look in Lexa’s eyes, not liking the rosy hue of the room. Had the blinds been pulled shut?

“This is one of those things that just doesn’t need an audience,” Lexa murmured, and suddenly they were on the roof and Lexa was leaning against the door to the stairwell except this time, Clarke was pressed against her.

She nearly passed out when Lexa’s hands tangled in her hair, when Lexa pulled her even closer, when Lexa’s lips finally met hers, sighing into her mouth.

She wasn’t sure how long they kept at it, all she knew was that breathing wasn’t much of an issue, she was getting all the oxygen she needed from Lexa’s wandering hands and lips and—

//

She woke up in her own bed, alone and shivering, her alarm clock blaring (sounding, to Clarke’s very distracted ears—some parts of her still stuck in her dream, or rather, still _craving_ the dream—like it was annoyed with her).

Clarke shook her head vigorously, not quite blaming her clock. She was rather annoyed with herself.

//

“You had a sex dream about Lexa?”

“This is why I don’t tell you anything, Octavia. This right here.”

“Fine,” Octavia muttered, rolling her eyes. “Sorry. How would you like me to describe this dream? Naughty? About time? A deep, dark look into your subconscious?”

“Let’s go with problematic.”

“You’re stubborn, I hope you know that. And boring. You’re really boring.”

“You just don’t decide one day that you don’t hate someone you’ve hated for more than half your life.”

“You do when you never really hated her in the first place.” Octavia let out a sigh, accentuating her point. “Didn’t we go over all this when you first started spending time with her two months ago?”

“I’m not listening.”

“Of course you’re not. You’re terrified of emotions.”

“I’m at best _allergic_ to emotions. I’m not scared of anything.”

“Except, you know, your feelings for Lexa.”

“To be scared of them, I’d have to _have_ them.”

“In order to see if you have them, Clarke, you’ve got to be willing to face them.”

“Raven says I should have a drive thru wedding.” Octavia seemed affronted by the very thought.

“With all the effort I’m putting in to make you see sense? Oh no. I want a legitimate wedding, cake and flowers and crappy relatives and even crappier music. I want to be maid of honor, Clarke. Okay? That’s non-negotiable.”

//

The next day she learned that Lexa had somehow managed to find the money necessary to keep her employees (much to Nia Gelid’s ultimate frustration).

She also learned, as she watched Lexa shake hands with relieved men and women, watched her brush off praise easily, that she was in serious trouble.

She definitely felt no hatred for Lexa, and admiration _may_ have been an understatement.

(And by ‘may’ she meant absolutely. Not that she was planning on mulling or ruminating on it.)

(Obviously.) 

XXX

_Present day…_

She wasn't expecting anyone in the office when she walked in. Lexa had gone on a lunch meeting that Clarke decided she wasn't masochistic enough to attend and Indra Green was in her own office, only bothering to grunt Clarke's way when she greeted her. 

So she was understandably shocked when she walked into Lexa's office to be met by a small blond boy and a beautiful woman with dark, curly hair and awfully deep brown eyes. 

“You're not Lexa,” Clarke pointed out, going for stating the obvious rather than asking questions. The woman smiled.

“Good eye,” she said with a tiny laugh. “I'm Costia.” She held out a hand and after only the slightest bit of hesitation, Clarke reached forward and shook it, unsure if she was supposed to recognize the name. “I'm just dropping Aden off.” Clarke turned to the little boy who was now amusing himself with Lexa's chair, spinning again and again. 

“So that's the famous Aden.”

“Lexa talks about him?”

“Does Lexa talk about anything?”

“Oh,” Costia said, now looking terribly amused. “You must be Clarke.”

“Lexa talks about me?”

“She never actually stops,” Costia informed her, laughing. “While we were dating, it almost felt like I was competing against you somehow. And that was long before this arrangement even started.” She gestured to Clarke's desk, and Clarke realized she was talking about the mandatory bonding time her father had written into his Will. Something must have shown on her face, because after a second, Costia looked alarmed. “Not that I hold it against you at all,” she said hurriedly. “Lexa and I...we wouldn't have worked out. Even without, you know, her thing with you.”

“What thing?”

“The relationship she has with you,” Costia said, frowning as if Clarke had lost her mind. “It's...well, unique.”

“I suppose you could call hating me since middle school a unique relationship.”

“Right, so the things Lexa says about you are true after all.” She smiled enigmatically, clearly unwilling to elaborate. “Would you mind staying with Aden until Lexa gets back? I really have to go. Can't be late for work, you know?” Clarke nodded numbly, not quite sure what she was agreeing to, and watched Costia give Aden a hug goodbye before holding out her hand once more. “It was really good meeting you, Clarke. And uh,” She looked uncertain for a second before deciding to plow on, “I really hope things work out.” Without giving Clarke a chance to ask what exactly was supposed to work out, Costia was gone and Clarke was left with a five year old staring at her knowingly. 

“You hungry?” she asked him. His eyes narrowed, comically similar to the way Lexa's narrowed when she was feeling skeptical, but after a long moment, he nodded carefully. 

“Yes.”

“Want to go get lunch?”

“Can I get chicken nuggets?” he asked, almost as if he was...negotiating with her. She nearly snorted. 

“You can get whatever you want.” She didn't need his answering smile to know that he was sold on the idea. 

//

Getting lunch with Aden was an...experience. 

Getting back only to see a frantic, panicky Lexa was less so. 

“Where have you _been_?” Lexa demanded the second she saw Aden, rushing forward and pulling him into a hug, gripping onto his shoulders perhaps a little tighter than was strictly comfortable. In fact, Clarke was a little worried that Lexa was actually smothering Aden.

“Can he breathe?” she asked, regretting the words immediately. Lexa released Aden and stalked over to Clarke, clearly furious.

“Where did you go? Where did you take him?”

“To lunch, just to lunch. I promise.”

“I got chicken nuggets,” Aden supplied helpfully, tugging on Lexa’s sleeve. “And Clarke showed me how to draw a tree, look.” He tugged the napkin they’d drawn all over out of his pocket and showed it to Lexa, looking adorably insistent and excited. Lexa looked torn for a moment, as if she wasn’t sure whether to congratulate Aden or continue yelling at Clarke, but then she heaved a sigh and bent over, pressing a kiss to Aden’s head.

“You’re not supposed to do that, Aden,” she said softly. “I have to know where you are, okay?” Aden nodded, not looking like he was very interested in Lexa’s worry, his focus mostly on the napkin in his hands. He pulled away from Lexa and scrambled up into her chair, grabbing a pen and letting the tip hover over the small drawing, as if wanting to modify or add it, but not knowing how. Lexa took advantage of his distraction and turned back to Clarke, just as angry as before.

“Before you go off on me,” Clarke said hurriedly, holding up her hands, “I’ve known you my entire life and I’m a pediatrician. There’s literally no one he’d be safer with.” When Lexa didn’t look convinced, Clarke let out a sigh. “It was just lunch, Lexa.”

“He’s my responsibility, Clarke. You can’t…you can’t just—”

“I texted you, I told Indra, and Costia seemed perfectly fine with leaving him with me.”

“You…you met Costia?”

“She said you talk about me.” Lexa blushed deeply, immediately averting her eyes.

“You came up a few times. Stories about high school,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck. “It was nothing serious.”

“I never said it was,” Clarke assuaged her, though she knew her lips were being rather traitorous, betraying her by pulling up in amusement. “Don’t worry, Raven sometimes says she feels as if she knows you, even though you’ve never met.”

“You talked about me?”

“Only terrible things, promise.” Lexa chuckled, meeting Clarke’s gaze briefly before looking away once more, as if her eyes couldn’t tolerate the sight. “He’s a great kid,” Clarke continued, knowing it was time to leave and yet…well, she didn’t want to leave.

(Not that she was dwelling or anything.)

“He probably behaved for the chicken nuggets.”

“No, Lexa. He’s just really good. A lot like you.” (She hadn’t meant to say that, why did she say that?)

(Perhaps because she was thinking it.)

(But it wasn’t like she was _ruminating_. Really.)

“Like me?”

“You heard me the first time, no need to try and get me to repeat it.”

“I wanted to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.”

“It’s not that strange, I’ve paid you plenty of compliments.”

“Really?”

“I’m pretty sure.”

“Name one time.”

“Now you’re just fishing.”

Lexa laughed and, in that moment, Clarke realized something very important: she had been dwelling and ruminating and mulling ( _subconsciously_ , obviously) if the fluttery feeling in her stomach and the race of her heart was any indication.

(She was so, so screwed.)

(She was such a _cliché_ , dammit.)

//

“So, Wells. How does one get rid of feelings?”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about and I’m already not on board.”

“Wow, no need to be so offensive,” Clarke mock-huffed, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back in the booth’s seat. The restaurant was fairly empty for a weeknight, a perfect spot for the conversation she’d been dying to have with her best friend. All those positive feelings for the boy were washed away when Wells chuckled and grabbed a few of Clarke’s fries, ignoring her very real huff. “I told you to order more than a salad.”

“I’m trying to be healthy,” he said, frowning slightly at her when she just looked pointedly at the three empty beer bottles and the half-eaten salad. “ _Trying_ is the operative word there, Clarke.”

“Wells. Focus.”

“Are we really going to spend my entire visit talking about Lexa? Wasn’t talking about her in high school enough?”

“The moral of the story is that you should visit more. You only live an hour away.” She paused, sitting up straight as she processed his words. “Wait a minute. How’d you know about Lexa?”

“Raven,” he said simply, giving up on subtlety and pulling her fries towards him, clearly intending to polish off the rest. “I said it back in high school and I’ll say it now: you and Lexa are blind and annoying.”

“I hate the fact that you and Raven became friends.”

“Clarke. Focus,” Wells said, throwing her own words back at her. “You can’t get rid of feelings.”

“I can try.”

“No. You can’t.” When she only looked doubtful, Wells let out a sigh and rolled his eyes. “Okay, look. Do you like her?”

“I’ve always liked her. Even when I hated her.”

“Clarke, we’re not twelve anymore. You know what I mean. Do you _like_ her?”

“No,” she answered, just a little stubbornly. “Maybe. Perhaps. Just a tiny bit,” she relented.

“Tell her.”

“I _can’t_ ,” she hissed, running her fingers through her hair. “That’s the problem.”

“Why not?”

“Because she has a beautiful ex and a kid who isn’t actually her kid, but he’s sweet and funny and talks and acts exactly like her, and she’s so _caring_ and works so hard and…she’s _Lexa_. She hates me.” For a long moment, Wells didn’t speak. But then he pulled Clarke’s burger towards himself as well.

“What?” he asked when she glared at him. “Do you even hear yourself? We’re going to be here for a while, you might as well feed me well.” He took a large bite of her sandwich, ignoring her spluttering. “So first things first,” he said between his mouthful of food. “When did you fall in love with Lexa?”

“Love? Me? What? This is mild infatuation, at best. This is, um. A masochistic desire to be close to the thing I hate?”

“Telling me or asking me there, Clarke?”

“Asking, definitely asking.”

“You should order some wings. And more beer. We’ll be here longer than I thought.”

“ _Wells_. You’re not helping.”

“ _Clarke_ ,” he said, grinning when she scowled at him. “You don’t need my help. What you need is to _talk to Lexa_.”

“Talking is overrated, don’t you think?” she asked, only to be met with a supremely unimpressed look.

“Okay, how’s this. Your six months with Lexa will be over soon anyway, right?”

“I mean, we’re halfway through it.”

“Right, so in three months, if these feelings you don’t ‘understand,’” he looked at her as if he knew she was lying, as if he was sure she knew _exactly_ what the feelings were (but no one had ever accused Wells of being stupid, so it wasn’t _that_ surprising), “magically go away, no harm no foul. You walk away. If not…”

“I tell her?”

“You tell her,” he repeated, nodding carefully. “Tell her how you feel, and if things go south, there’ll be no awkwardness. You’ll never have to see her again.”

“Right,” she muttered, nodding carefully. “Wait three months. Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.”

(Spoiler, she couldn’t.)

(Of course she couldn’t, she was a walking cliché.)

_Thirteen years previously…_

“Clarke, we have to have a truce.” The words ‘another one?’ were on her lips, but she remembered the fierce way Lexa had sworn her to silence that night two years ago, so instead Clarke just rolled her eyes. “Clarke. We _have_ to.”

“Why?”

“I need your help.”

“You? You never need help with anything.”

“Clarke, please. It’s about Anya.” She froze, turning to Lexa with wide eyes.

“Did she say something to you?” she found herself hissing, close to breaking her promise, close to speaking of the things they were never supposed to speak about. Lexa shook her head immediately.

“No, nothing like that. She needs our help though.” Lexa winced. “Well. _Your_ help.” She grabbed Clarke by the wrist and pulled her out of the cafeteria—where she’d been minding her own business, eating her lunch as she finished her English homework—and led her towards the art room. “Anya’s…well, she’s flunking.”

“Art?”

“It’s not funny, Clarke. She was required to take it and well…she’s more of a math person.”

“But no one fails art. I’m pretty sure it’s impossible.” When Lexa just shot her a look, Clarke let out a sigh. “All right, fine. What does she need?”

“Any help you can give her. She has to pass, otherwise her scholarship will fall through. And she _needs_ to go to college. I need her to go. I spend way too much time with Anya.”

“What do I get out of this?”

“A truce.”

“Please, I can hold my own.”

“Fine. Whatever you want.”

“Anything?”

“Yes,” Lexa said, close to sounding desperate. “ _Anything_. Just make sure she passes.”

(For the next two weeks, Clarke worked with Anya, Lexa always sitting near them, ostensibly to ‘keep Anya from attacking,’ though mostly, she chatted and joked and teased both Anya and Clarke.)

(When Anya passed and Lexa asked Clarke what she wanted in return for her help, Clarke could think of nothing but how it’d felt like elementary school again—how it’d felt like she had her best friend again—and she just waved Lexa off.)

(She never really questioned why.)

_Present day…_

“Clarke?”

“Hmm?”

“What’re you doing?”

“Writing up a patient summary for…and you don’t care,” she finished, looking up at Lexa and noticing her glazed over expression. “If you’re going to nag me again, Lexa, I’m going to be really disappointed.”

“Is it really called nagging when I ask you to use your own desk?”

“But your chair is nicer.”

“Which is why I want it back.”

“It’s selfish, really. The least you could do is give me the better chair—”

“We could have dinner?”

“—I mean, I am doing you a massive fa—” She stopped mid-word, eyes flying to Lexa’s face. “Wait. What?”

“Dinner? With me? And Aden of course.” When Clarke merely continued to stare, mouth slightly ajar, Lexa hastened to explain. “It’s just that…well, you’re right. I haven’t exactly thanked you properly for doing all this yet. And Aden hasn’t stopped talking about how great you are. Two birds, one stone, right?” Clarke’s eyes roved around the office, searching for the rosy hue from her dream. But she was met with the grisly sight of dim office lights, sunlight streaming in from the open blinds, and when she pinched herself, it hurt.

(She wasn’t dreaming, _damn_.)

“Uh, Clarke?”

“Sorry, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.” She looked around some more, wincing just a little. “Still waiting.”

“If you don’t want to come it’s—”

“No! I mean, yes. I mean, of course I want to come. I just…” She trailed off, not quite sure how to explain she wasn’t sure if this was a joke or a dream or just one massive prank. “Yes, Lexa. I would love to have dinner with you and Aden.” The look of relief on Lexa’s face was well worth any potential prank or awkward dream.

“Great. How does tomorrow night sound?”

“Perfect.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Clarke repeated, not really noticing that her traitorous lips were at it again with the smiling. When Lexa continued to stare at her, she jumped. “Oh. Sorry. Your desk. Right.”

(The English language was failing her. Or maybe she was failing the English language. Either way, she didn’t think she could’ve been more awkward.)

(Spoiler, she totally could. Not that that’s a spoiler; she was a walking cliché, after all.)

//

“Do you know why she broke things off with Costia?”

“No.”

“Would you even tell me if you knew?”

“No.”

“I thought we had an understanding, even a blooming friendship.”

“No.”

“I’m rather devastated.”

“Dr. Griffin, please. Go back to work.”

“I’m doing my job, Ms. Green. Observing and whatnot.”

“Go observe somewhere else.”

“Come on. Can’t you give me _anything_? I’m having dinner with her tonight and it couldn’t hurt to be prepared.”

“She invited you?”

“Yeah.”

“On her own accord? You didn’t force her?”

“What? No, of course not. How does anyone force Lexa to do anything?”

“She likes chocolate chip cookies. The chewy ones with—”

“—extra chocolate, yeah I know.”

“Clearly you know her better than I do.”

“You’re no help, Ms. Green.”

“I hope you have a pleasant evening, Dr. Griffin. But if you don’t mind, I really need to get back to work.”

//

“Is it a date if their kid is there too?” Raven asked, kicking her feet up onto Clarke’s coffee table. “Knee hurts,” she said with a shrug when Clarke glared.

“It’s not a date and that’s not an excuse.”

“It is a date. Are you nervous? She’s already having you meet her kid. You guys don’t know how to take things slow, do you?”

“Well, I wasn’t nervous until you put it that way.” Clarke sat down next to Raven on the couch, leaning into her friend and gripping tightly to her hand. “Oh god. How am I supposed to act around her?”

“Acting normally would be a good bet.”

“I’ve never been _normal_ around Lexa. One time, in middle school—”

“Sorry, I’ll stop you right there,” Raven muttered, pulling away from Clarke with a disgusted expression. “I’ve probably already heard this story, and I just can’t deal with the fact that you’re literally sitting here _angsting_ over Lexa when you’re about to go on a date with her.”

“It’s not a date.” Clarke paused, frowning. “And I don’t angst.”

“Clarke. Go get dressed.”

_Fourteen years previously…_

He was reading (or more accurately, pretending to be reading) on the couch while she sat at the dinner table, working on her homework. She heard him shuffle around, heard him flip through the book—as if searching for the part it got interesting—before he tossed it aside and came over to her, pulling out the chair across from her and sitting down heavily.

“I saw Lexa today,” he said, and it took all of Clarke’s willpower to not look up. She continued writing, turning the page of her textbook. “She was at the park, you know, the one the two of you spent so much time in?” He waited for her to say something, but when she didn’t, he seemed all too happy to continue. “She was alone. Looked pretty sad, too.”

“Lexa is never sad,” Clarke said, unable to help herself. She glared at her father, blaming him for her outburst, while he just grinned victoriously, having managed to bait her into a conversation she didn’t want to have.

“Clarke, the two of you were best friends. What happened?”

“We stopped being friends.”

“Why?”

“We just did,” she muttered, twirling her pencil around with her fingers. She met her father’s gaze when he didn’t immediately respond, hating herself the second she looked into his sad eyes (his _worried_ eyes.) “We had a fight.”

“About what?”

“I don’t know, it was two years ago.”

“And you haven’t made up?”

“It was a big fight?”

“But you don’t remember what it was about.” He sounded skeptical, and Clarke cursed the fact that her father knew her so well. It was frustratingly difficult to lie to him. “I thought you said high school was all about growing up and being more mature. How is holding onto a grudge from the seventh grade being mature?”

“She’s holding onto it too.”

“What if you try talking to her? Maybe—”

“You don’t get it. She doesn’t want to talk. I’ve tried apologizing—”

“—so it _was_ your fault?”

“Wow, way to throw me under the bus.” When her father just stared at her, Clarke let out a sigh. “Do we have to talk about this?”

“I know you miss her.”

“Me? Miss Lexa? What? No way.”

“I can tell when you’re lying.”

“Dad—”

“You don’t have to tell me why you guys had a falling out. You don’t even have to promise that you’ll talk to her.” He leaned forward, resting his chin on his hands. “You can lie all you want to me, to your friends, or to Lexa. But never, ever, lie to yourself. Okay, kiddo?” Clarke nodded shakily.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

_Present day…_

“Can we have ice cream first?” Aden asked, scrambling up into one of the kitchen stools. Lexa just looked at him, a look reminiscent of the ones she gave Clarke in high school, and he let out a sigh, obviously dejected. “She always says no,” he informed Clarke in a loud whisper. “But I ask anyway.”

“You have it in you to deny him ice cream?” Clarke asked, settling down on the stool next to Aden’s, propping her elbows up on the tabletop. “I knew him for five minutes before I was offering him chicken nuggets and extra fries.”

“Aden knows we have a deal. No dessert until after dinner, except on special occasions.”

“Like birthdays and Christmas,” Aden announced, smiling. “And when I go out with Aunt Costia.” Lexa coughed a little, turning away from them to stare intently at the oven, as if she could bake their chicken faster just by glaring.

“I became his guardian when he was two,” she explained, swallowing hard and briefly meeting Clarke’s gaze before focusing on the stove. “I was still with Costia at the time, and well. She grew attached.”

“She seemed really nice. And clearly works quite hard.” Lexa nodded immediately, obviously relieved that she wouldn’t have to explain the odd set-up she had with Costia any longer.

“She’s a journalist. Travels a lot. She wants to change the world.” She smiled, looking fond and a little lost (as if she had gone back in time and she was with Costia again) before she shook her head a little violently and focused on Clarke. “She’s rarely ever in town, but when she is, she makes time for Aden.”

“You don’t have to explain anything to me, Lexa,” Clarke said, taking the pen and napkin Aden handed her. She drew a quick sketch of Aden himself, leaning forward on the barstool, and she laughed when Aden just looked at the result with wide eyes and a slightly ajar mouth.

The rest of dinner, thankfully, went by without anymore mention of Aden’s past or of Lexa’s relationship with Costia. For the most part, it went rather well (it wasn’t as if the conversation was _lively_ per se, but it wasn’t awkward either, and that was a win in Clarke’s book). The only hiccup came when Aden asked if Clarke would teach him how to draw and Lexa quickly shook her head from behind him, where she’d been putting their dishes away, and Clarke found herself muttering that she was quite busy, unable to meet Aden’s crestfallen gaze all through dessert and even when he murmured a sullen goodnight and went to bed without complaint an hour later.

That was when, of course, the awkwardness ensued.

“Thank you, by the way,” Lexa said softly, sitting on one end of the couch while Clarke curled up at the other, a cup of hot tea cradled in her hands. “I just don’t want to disappoint him, you know? He’s young—I can’t let him get attached to someone who won’t be around.”

“Because I’m unreliable?”

“No, because in three months, you and I won’t have anything to do with each other anymore. You’ll go back to your life, and it’ll be like this never even happened.”

“Is that what you want?”

“It’s what’s going to happen.”

“But is it what you _want_?” For a long moment, Clarke was sure Lexa wasn’t even going to bother with responding, but then she sighed, placed her empty teacup on the coffee table, and adjusted her glasses before turning to Clarke with a somber expression.

“What I want doesn’t matter.”

“What does that even mean?”

“You haven’t asked about Aden,” Lexa said suddenly, making Clarke frown.

“I didn’t think it was my business.”

“He’s Anya’s son.” Clarke’s mouth opened and closed a few times, but nothing came out, and Lexa let out a small, mirthless laugh. “Crazy, right?”

“I mean—”

“After my uncle died,” Lexa said, cutting her off, looking like she’d wanted to say this for a while but didn’t know how, “Anya and I became close. You know, like we never had been able to before.” She chuckled and shook her head in disbelief. “All those times my uncle tried to get us in the same room, let alone getting along, and it turned out all we needed was a little bit of shared grief.”

“You don’t have to tell me this,” Clarke tried, but Lexa shook her head again.

“Then one day I get a knock on my door, and it’s Anya. She asks if she can stay with me for a while, asks if I’d be godmother to her kid.” She heaved a big breath, looking towards the hallway Aden had disappeared into, her eyes softening. “And I thought, what the hell? It wasn’t like being godmother was anything but a dumb title, right?” Tentatively, Clarke approached her, reaching out to take one of her hands—making sure to keep her grip loose, in case Lexa wanted to pull away. But Lexa held on tight, almost as if she didn’t even realize she was using Clarke’s hand as a lifeline. “But then Anya’s gone.”

“Oh god, Lexa, I’m so sorry.”

“And I’m being told that I can let him go, that he’d be put up for adoption, but he’s my family, he’s all I have left, so I take on the responsibility I’m nowhere near prepared for.”

“So why break up with Costia, why—”

“She was never around!” Lexa hissed, turning her head. “Before…I could tolerate it. We were both busy, it was fine.” Her shoulders hunched, but she kept her face averted. “But then Uncle Gustus and Anya were gone, and I just…I couldn’t—” She cut herself off, turning to Clarke with a hard expression. “I wasn’t going to let Aden grow up in a household that’s anything less than perfect. _Perfect,_ Clarke.” Lexa stared at her, and it was like the night so long ago, when they had their truce and Clarke comforted Lexa. But it was also completely different. This time, despite the desperation of her words and the quivering of her lip, Lexa wasn’t confessing anything—she was begging Clarke to understand.

(To understand why she said what she wanted didn’t matter, to understand why her desires stopped mattering the day she became responsible for Aden.)

(And though Clarke did understand, one thing was abundantly clear. Despite all of Lexa’s words, she was also asking for Clarke to do what she always did: contradict her.)

“You know that sounds stupid, right?” (Could she have phrased that better? Yes. Would it have had the same effect? Probably not.)

“Excuse me?” Lexa stuttered, looking shocked and slightly offended, though she didn’t pull her hand away.

“What you’re telling me is that you’re not going to let anyone into your life because of…Aden. You realize that sounds like an excuse, right?”

“You don’t understand.”

“You’re never going to find perfect, Lexa,” she said, biting her lip. “Protecting Aden is one thing, but closing yourself off and saying it’s for him is quite another.” Lexa stared at her, unblinkingly, and after a second, Clarke mustered the courage to continue. “You lost your uncle and your cousin in a very short time, and you felt abandoned by your girlfriend. As scared as you are of Aden getting hurt, you’re just as afraid for yourself.”

“And is that so wrong?” Lexa demanded, pulling away from Clarke and getting to her feet. “Everyone _leaves_.”

“No, that’s not—”

“My uncle, Anya, Costia… _you_. Everyone leaves, and I just can’t take it. Not anymore.” Clarke nodded, getting to her feet as well.

“You’re blaming me?”

“You were the first one to leave.”

“I never left, I didn’t even _do_ anything.”

“That was the problem, Clarke! You didn’t do anything! You just…let us fall apart. You just decided we weren’t worth the effort anymore.”

“Do you know how many times I—” She stopped, suddenly remembering Wells’ words. _When did you fall in love with Lexa_? (Only now did she realize it was probably around the same time she and Lexa had their ‘falling out.’ And all she could think was, well, _whoops_.)

“How many times, what? If you’re going to bring up the truces, I swear we’re never going to—” But Clarke didn’t let Lexa finish. She leaned forward, and with on hand at Lexa’s neck and the other tugging her forward by the wrist, Clarke kissed her.

(She kissed Lexa and her only coherent thought was, _finally_ , which in and of itself, was a cliché.)

(She was so _tired_ of clichés.)

When she pulled away, Lexa’s mouth was hanging open, her eyes wide, her glasses askew.

“Oh.” 

XXX

_Fourteen years previously…_

Calling her had been an accident.

(You know, the first time.)

Clarke snuck out into the backyard once she was sure her parents were asleep, and she found Lexa waiting for her by the old swing set, perched precariously on the edge of the seat, her arms hooked around the chains, oscillating back and forth with the tips of her shoes trailing over the grass. She was wearing a pair of baggy sweats and an old long-sleeved t-shirt, and Clarke wondered if Lexa had been about to go to bed when she called her and had come straight over without bothering to change. The thought made her let out a chuckle, and Lexa looked up at the sound, smiling slightly as Clarke reached her. Without a word, Clarke sat on the other swing, keeping her feet firmly rooted on the ground.

For several minutes they stayed just like that: Clarke staring determinedly at the ground and Lexa staring determinedly at her, all the while swinging back and forth. Finally, it seemed she had enough.

“What’s wrong, Clarke?” she asked, sounding concerned, sounding soft (and if Clarke was fond of admitting ‘things’ to herself, she’d recognize that Lexa sounded like she always did when she talked to Clarke: invested). “This is our fourth truce since school started.”

“One of those was yours,” Clarke mumbled, still staring at the ground. Lexa snorted.

“True enough. But ice cream never tasted so good.”

“What if we make a deal? You tell me why we had to go out to ice cream and I’ll tell you what’s wrong.” She braved a look at Lexa, feeling rather vulnerable beneath her searching gaze, but ultimately—after a long and nerve-wracking pause—Lexa nodded carefully, bringing her swing to a halt. 

“Do you want me to go first?”

“Please.”

“Do you remember your ninth birthday?” Lexa asked, smiling slightly. “Your parents wanted to throw you a big party and you put up a huge fuss, claiming all you wanted was an ice cream cake and me.”

“I was young and naïve,” Clarke teased, and Lexa laughed, swatting Clarke’s shoulder with the back of her hand and rolling her eyes.

“The thing is, I fucking hate ice cream.” Clarke didn’t even have the time to look offended before Lexa plowed on. “But since that day, I don’t know, it’s like a comfort food. I only eat it when I’m sad.”

“Why were you sad?”

“You know why,” Lexa muttered, turning away. And the thing was, she did. She’d been there through some of Lexa’s tenuous-at-best relationship with Anya, and from what she’d heard through the grapevine (her father), things hadn’t at all improved. It was oddly touching—in a weird and ‘cannot be admitted under any circumstance,’ sort of way—that Lexa would use ice cream as a way to fend off the sadness. If she didn’t know any better, Clarke might’ve thought Lexa somehow got comfort from something that reminded her of Clarke.

“I thought I’d like high school more,” Clarke admitted in a soft voice, knowing Lexa didn’t want to linger on her own troubles for too long. “Mostly I just feel alone.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”

“Lexa?” she asked, tugging Lexa’s swing over to her, getting them close enough so that she could lean her head on Lexa’s shoulder. “Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“Want to go get ice cream after school tomorrow?”

“Yeah. That sounds good.”

_Present day…_

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Um, I didn't mean to do that.”

“Didn't mean to kiss me?” She sounded a little offended.

“I wanted you to stop talking. It seemed...an effective...way to do that.”

“You kissed me to...shut me up?” Now she just sounded incredulous.

“Well, when you put it like that, it sounds pretty bad.”

“Do you normally kiss people to shut them up?” (Annoyingly, _now_ she sounded terribly smug, and it pissed Clarke off.)

“No, um, no. You're the uh, first.” She stared at her hands, her traitorous, traitorous hands, which had pulled Lexa closer (and she cursed her traitorous, traitorous lips, which were still tingling, as if the pressure on the nerves had finally been lifted and the cells took advantage, firing signal after signal in a desperate attempt to make her question all her life choices). Though she tried to evaporate into thin air (if only to escape the hell she was in), physics didn't much care for her embarrassment, and the awkwardness (and _tingling_ ) stretched on. “See,” she rambled on, needing to fill the silence, “you do it all the time, talk over me to get the last word. You've done it as long as I can remember. And I just wanted the last word, you know?” She chanced a look at Lexa, wincing at the wide-eyed look still on her face. “It was an accident?” she tried, unsurprised when that just made Lexa smirk.

“So, did you kiss me to shut me up or was it on accident? Just so we're on the same page?”

“You're enjoying this, aren't you?” She crossed her arms over her chest, suddenly angry. “You're acting as if you've never wanted to kiss me. Okay? _Everyone_ wants to kiss me. God, can it have been that terrible of an experience? It happened, time to accept that and move on and—” She fell silent as Lexa stepped forward agonizingly slowly, as she cupped Clarke's cheeks with her hands, as she leaned forward and kissed her, her lips soft and warm and oh-so gentle. When she pulled away, Clarke's eyes fluttered open to a smile she hadn't seen on Lexa's face since...well, ever.

“You talk too much,” Lexa said, her grin widening at Clarke's huff.

“Lexa, I—” But before she could say anything else, there was a shuffle from the hallway, and Aden appeared, hair tousled, with stuffed penguin hanging from his hand, dragging a large blanket behind him.

“Lexa, there's the noise again. Dory needs you to check.” Aden muttered, rubbing his eyes with his hand. Clarke turned to Lexa with a frown.

“Dory?”

“The penguin,” she explained, shrugging when Clarke's frown deepened at how _wrong_ that was. “Aden, I'll be right with you, okay?”

“No, Lexa, it's fine,” Clarke said, seeing how torn Lexa was, wanting to both continue her 'conversation' with Clarke and immediately tend to Aden. “I should go anyway.”

“Are you sure? I can—”

“He needs you, Lexa. I can wait.” She stepped backwards, heading towards the door, smiling to reassure Lexa. “Aden, next time we hang out, I'll teach you how to draw Dory, okay? And also the fish.” Aden nodded eagerly, and though Lexa was biting her lip, there was something terribly open about her expression when Clarke turned to her. “Bye, Lexa.”

“I'll see you tomorrow.” It sounded like a promise, and after a moment, Clarke realized it _was_ a promise. A promise to talk, a promise to get this all cleared up. (It was both horrifying and awfully exciting, and Clarke wasn’t quite sure how she was supposed to react.)

“Right,” Clarke said awkwardly, bumping into the doorway as she walked backwards, blushing when Lexa raised her eyebrows in amusement. “Tomorrow.” She waved at Aden and with one last look at Lexa, she left.

When she got home, it was to Raven sitting on her couch and watching television. Without speaking, Clarke kicked off her shoes and sat next to her, leaning her head on Raven's shoulder.

“So, how'd it go?” Raven asked after a short pause, clearly unwilling to be kept waiting.

“I kissed her. She kissed me.”

“So it was a date after all! Excellent, Octavia owes me ten bucks.” Ignoring the gambling, Clarke just sighed deeply.

“I feel so bad.,” she said, moving so that she could meet Raven's eyes. “I teased her so much in high school.”

“What?”

“She went to senior prom with a girl named Maggie. And I couldn't help myself. I asked her if Lexa was a good kisser.” She bit her lip, turning away from Raven's gaze. “She said Lexa chickened out. I teased Lexa for the rest of the school year. But she's such a good kisser. I was so wrong.”

"Who'd you go with?" Raven asked, apparently not listening to a word Clarke was saying because she didn’t immediately offer the reassurances that Clarke was looking for. 

“What?”

“Senior prom. Who did you go with?”

“Oh. Well. I, uh. I didn't go. When I heard Lexa was going with Maggie, I was angry, didn't think it was right that the girl I hated got to be happy. So I just stayed home.” She blushed deeply when Raven merely stared at her for a moment.

“You were jealous,” she said flatly. Clarke sighed again.

“Yeah, in hindsight, that makes much more sense.”

//

_“Have you talked yet?”_ Octavia asked, and Clarke knew she was sitting in traffic both from the honking of the horn as well as the curses Octavia was muttering under her breath.

“I’m at work, Octavia.” When Octavia remained silent, Clarke nearly groaned. “No, we haven’t talked yet.”

_“Oh my god, Clarke. The hospital can wait. Your love life can’t. Hasn’t it suffered enough?”_

“I’m going to hang up on you now.”

_“Clarke—”_

It was the last thing she heard before she slipped her phone into her pocket and went back to work. (She ignored the barrage of texts she got not two seconds later.)

//

_“Have you talked_ yet _?”_

“Oh my god, I don’t even know why I answered the phone.”

//

When she arrived at Lexa’s office, Indra informed her that Lexa was at a meeting. So Clarke, with a plastered smile and a fierce determination to make Indra like her, settled down on a chair across from Indra’s desk and offered her a chocolate chip cookie.

“You brought these…for me?” Indra asked suspiciously, narrowing her eyes when Clarke held out the bag. Clarke did what anyone in her situation would: she lied.

“Absolutely.”

“Is that why it’s chewy and has extra chocolate chips?”

“I got a few for Lexa, too. Thought it’d only be fair.”

“I take it the dinner went well,” Indra said, accepting a cookie and smirking at Clarke. An actual, totally certified, _smirk_.

“What? Why would you—did Lexa say something?”

“She smiled at me this morning,” Indra said thoughtfully, flicking crumbs off her desk. “I don’t think Miss Woods has ever smiled at me.”

“So that meeting. How long did you say it’d last?”

“Don’t worry, Dr. Griffin,” Indra said knowingly, that stupid smirk still in place. “I doubt you’ll have to wait long.”

//

Indra was wrong.

Several hours later (much later than she’d ever left the office in the three months prior), Clarke made the dejected trip to her car, accepting that she wouldn’t be seeing Lexa after all. A part of her thought that perhaps Lexa was avoiding her—that maybe she regretted the previous night, after all—but Indra told her that Lexa had left the meeting in a rush and that no one had heard from her since. Clarke hadn’t needed Indra’s grim frown or her constant fiddling with her phone—as if she was just waiting for the second it’d ding with a message from Lexa—to know that that wasn’t normal for Lexa at all.

Just as she was debating whether to go home and drink a bottle of wine or actually invest the energy to make herself dinner, her phone rang.

“Dammit, Octavia, _no_ I haven’t talked to Lexa yet.”

_“Who’s Octavia?”_ came Lexa’s voice, and Clarke dropped her phone. She scooped it up, wondering if she should hang up and pretend this call never happened, but then she heard a soft ‘ _Clarke?’_ come from the speaker, and she hesitantly and reluctantly brought the phone back up to her ear.

“So Indra is ninety percent sure you’ve been kidnapped and are being ransomed for some absurd amount and we won’t be able to afford to bring you home.”

_“Did she actually say that?”_

“I read between the lines.”

_“I’m really sorry, Clarke. I wanted to see you—to talk. But the daycare called because Aden’s running a fever—”_

“What are his symptoms?” she asked, slipping easily into territory she understood and felt comfortable in. It was habit, really. Someone said they were sick, Clarke immediately felt the need to treat it.

_“He seemed a little more tired than usual this morning,”_ she said, and Clarke could hear Lexa’s own fatigue and even a little bit of fear, _“and he didn’t want to eat anything. When I brought him home, I offered him ice cream, but he says his stomach feels funny.”_

“He’s probably nauseous,” Clarke muttered, tapping her finger against the back of her cell phone. “I can come over, check on him. Only if you want,” she added hurriedly, not wanting to sound…well, she wasn’t quite sure.

_“I scheduled a doctor’s appointment for tomorrow morning, I don’t want to bother you. I just called to apologize for today.”_

“There’s nothing to apologize for. And checking on Aden isn’t a bother. Besides, I could ease your mind about him tonight, no need to wait for morning.” There was silence on the other end of the phone, and Clarke knew that Lexa was battling it out ferociously in her head, debating if her desperate desire to never inconvenience others trumped her need to keep Aden safe (and maybe, _maybe_ , she wanted to see Clarke too—or at least, Clarke _hoped_ she did).

_“Are you sure?”_ she asked softly, hesitantly, and Clarke nearly rolled her eyes. (Well, not _nearly_. She did, she rolled her eyes.)

“Absolutely.” She dug through her bag and pulled out her keys, but just as she was about to say her goodbyes, Lexa spoke again. Almost, as if, to herself.

_“You never really changed, did you?”_ She paused, almost as if she wasn’t sure if she should say the next part. _“You always did like running in to save the day.”_

“Only if it was your day,” Clarke said, cursing herself as the words came out because it was so incredibly _corny_ and _sappy_ but even worse, it was unbelievingly true, and that honesty sort of pissed her off. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been honest about her feelings—been so blunt in such a spectacularly lame way. Though, you know, it was probably with Lexa sometime in elementary school. Or middle school. Or high school. (But definitely with Lexa. She somehow drew out this nauseating side of Clarke.) Before she could say something else—quite possibly making things worse in her attempt to make it better—there was a shuffle and thud on the other end of the line, and Lexa let out a huff.

_“I think Aden just vomited. I’ll see you soon.”_ Clarke barely got out her goodbye before Lexa was telling Aden not to move and ending the call.

She stepped over to her car and leaned her forehead against the driver side window, groaning.

She wondered what she’d done to deserve such a stupid, traitorous, traitorous mouth.

//

She looked adorably flustered when she opened the door. (Not that Clarke would ever use the word adorable in reference to Lexa. At least, not out loud.)

“Oh god, you’re here. He’s thrown up twice now. But he isn’t even eating. And his fever is still rather high. How can I give him medicine if he’ll just vomit it back up?” Clarke shut the door behind her, noticing that Lexa wasn’t in the mindset to do it herself, but rather than follow Lexa towards Aden’s bedroom, she grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to remain still.

“Lexa. Calm down.”

“But—”

“No. You’re stressing. Stop stressing. I deal with sick kids all day, I know what I’m about.” 

“It’s not like I don’t trust you,” Lexa muttered, averting her eyes. Her shoulders, however, relaxed, which Clarke took as a good sign. “I just don’t like it when Aden’s ill.”

“Of course you don’t. You’re a good mom. So let me do the doctoring. Okay?” Lexa’s eyes flew up to meet hers, something indistinguishable glimmering in their depths, but before Clarke could take a moment to study the sudden change in demeanor, Lexa was nodding and pulling her towards Aden’s bedroom.

It was like walking into space. A solar system mobile was hanging from the corner of the ceiling. The rug on the floor was of the Earth from outer space. Glow-in-the-dark stars and comets littered the walls and ceiling. Even Aden’s bed was shaped like a spaceship, his sheets a deep blue, tiny little moons scattered across the fabric.

Aden himself was cocooned in his blankets, his stuffed penguin held tightly against his chest with one arm, the other holding onto a bucket. He looked miserable, with his hair matted against his sweaty forehead, his eyelids drooping slightly. Clarke looked back at Lexa—who was loitering at the doorway, her eyes fixated on the small bundle on the bed, biting down hard on her lower lip—before she approached Aden and fell to her knees in front of the spaceship.

“Hey Aden,” she said, brushing back some of his hair. “Do you remember me?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled, nodding. “You said we’d draw Dory. But I don’t feel good.”

“I heard.” She pressed her fingers in the junction between his jaw and neck, searching for any swelling. “I heard you also said you didn’t want ice cream.”

“My stomach feels funny,” Aden informed her. He let go of his bucket and motioned her closer. “I want to tell you something,” he whispered. “But you can’t tell Lexa.”

“Why not?”

“She gets scared.” The statement, said so bluntly and matter-of-factly, nearly brought tears to Clarke’s eyes. She didn’t turn around to look at Lexa, even though she wanted to, and instead focused on Aden’s tired gaze.

“I’m a doctor, Aden. You’re my patient. I can’t tell anyone what you tell me.” She nodded seriously when Aden gave her a disbelieving look, and he finally relented.

“It hurts,” he admitted softly. And that was when Clarke knew she’d have to let Lexa take Aden to his own doctor the next time he fell ill.

(“You can’t be a good doctor with your loved ones,” her mother had once told her when she complained that it didn’t make sense to pay for another physician when she had one ready at home. “You just can’t.”)

“Can I take a look?” she asked. This time, Aden didn’t look at her with narrowed eyes or barely concealed disbelief. He nodded easily and quickly, clearly having come to the conclusion that she was trustworthy.

(And Clarke, well. She was a goner.)

//

“Stomach flu?”

“Stomach flu.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

“His fever?”

“It’s low grade. Nothing to worry about.”

“Seriously?”

“If it does get higher, give him some children’s acetaminophen. But he won’t need it. It’s a viral infection, it’ll run its course and he’ll be fine. Just—”

“Bed rest and plenty of fluids. Yes. Okay.” Lexa nodded, as if to remind herself of the fact that it was indeed okay, her grip on her coffee cup tight, belying her supposed calm. “Are you _sure_?”

“Is the stethoscope not enough? Do you really need a copy of my medical degree?”

“I mean, if you’re offering to show it to me…?” she trailed off, grinning slightly, the only indication that she was slightly more relaxed was the fact that she’d released her coffee cup. “Thank you, Clarke,” she continued, pressing her palms onto the kitchen counter, her smile fading slightly. “You saved me from stressing out all night.”

“Mothers,” Clarke huffed, shaking her head. Rather than laugh, however, Lexa stared at her as if she’d never quite seen her.

“That’s the second time you’ve called me a mom. I’m not—he’s not—but—” She stopped attempting to talk altogether when Clarke leaned across the counter and forced Lexa to meet her gaze.

“There’s more to being a mom than giving birth to a kid.”

“But Anya—”

“—would be terribly happy that her son was being raised by her cousin who completely dotes on him? Who loves him unconditionally and without reservation? Yes, I totally agree.” She sat back down on her stool, draining the last of her coffee. “You’re doing a great job. Nothing else matters.”

“This isn’t a truce, is it?” Lexa blurted out, her eyes wide. “Because we fell back into old habits pretty quickly, and I just. This isn’t a truce, right? We’re okay?”

“Do I really seem like a person to hold onto a grudge from the seventh grade?”

“You held onto it all through high school.”

“I only held on because you held on.”

“What? Didn’t you think that maybe the reason I asked for so many truces was because I didn’t care anymore about something silly from middle school?”

“Sorry, Lexa, but we had a count, remember? I asked for way more truces than you did. So why didn’t it occur to you?”

“I don’t know. Why didn’t I kiss you when you got here?”

“Exactly, why didn’t—wait, what?” But Lexa had already made her way around, trapping Clarke between herself and the counter, her arms caging Clarke in.

“We should probably talk,” Lexa said, her eyes dropping to Clarke’s lips. “Clarify a few things.”

“Yeah. We should.” But Clarke’s eyes—her traitorous, traitorous eyes—couldn’t look away from Lexa’s mouth, from the way she licked her lips. And Clarke’s brain—her traitorous, traitorous brain—couldn’t function with Lexa pressed so close to her, when the smell of her shampoo or perfume or shower gel was overwhelming her, when it’d be so easy to pull Lexa flush against her. ( _The belt loops_ , a mantra began in her mind. _Pull her closer by the belt loops._ )

(Her traitorous, traitorous fingers complied.)

“You’re not going to break Aden’s heart, are you?” Lexa asked in barely a whisper, and Clarke thought for sure she was the Grinch, that her heart just grew three sizes at the love and vulnerability in Lexa’s tone. That even now, her first thought wasn’t for herself, but for Aden.

“Never,” Clarke swore, and that was all Lexa needed. Her traitorous, traitorous lips shouted in glee when Lexa kissed her—keeping it gentle and soft and hesitant before it quickly turned into something needy and wet and heated.

And when Lexa’s hands found their way under her shirt, fingers brushing the muscles of her abdomen, brushing her ribs, Clarke thought perhaps her knees might give way.

And when Lexa pressed further into her, well, Clarke couldn’t think at all.

_Six years previously…_

For whatever reason, she was thinking of Lexa the morning of her graduation.

Raven was chattering away about graduate schools as they drank coffee in their favorite café, only a few blocks away from the university. Clarke, however, wasn’t listening. She was staring at Lexa’s name, her thumb hovering over the contact listed in her phone.

“You’re not listening, are you?” Raven asked suddenly, cutting herself off.

“Um. No.” She gave Raven an apologetic look. “Sorry?”

“What’s got you so distracted?”

“Nothing. _Really_ ,” she stressed when Raven merely raised an eyebrow.

“It’s your nemesis again, isn’t it?” Raven guessed, taking a long sip of her coffee. “You get this adorable crease between your eyebrows when you think of her. God, Griffin, could you be anymore transparent?”

“Transparent? Crease?” She paused, registering something else. “Wait. Adorable?”

“If you want to talk to her, just _call_ her.” Raven nodded towards the phone in her hand, and Clarke swallowed hard. With a sudden surge of nerve, she dialed Lexa’s number.

(The nerve didn’t last very long.) 

(She hung up before the first ring.)

_Three years previously…_

She watched a patient die for the first time during her surgical rotation.

Her name was Harper. She had bright brown eyes, a ready smile, and wild hair that resisted any and all effort made on its part, continually maintaining a ‘just rolled out of bed’ look. She liked the smell of old books and had a pair of blue bunny slippers tucked under her hospital bed, hidden from view from the serious, no-nonsense surgeons Clarke was clerking for.

(She didn’t hide the slippers from Clarke.)

She’d watch the doctors with a careful, curious gaze, but she’d smile at Clarke, and if they were alone, she’d chat about the most recent article she had read and would ask Clarke for her opinions.

(The attending had been impressed, telling Clarke that the doctor-patient relationship was fundamental to being a good doctor.)

Complications arose during Harper’s surgery. Clarke watched as the doctors frantically tried to control the bleeding, control the situation, perform a miracle as she’d seen them do dozens of times before. But nothing worked. And when the attending declared the time of death, Clarke had to blink away tears, trying desperately not to think of Harper’s blue bunny slippers.

(The attending cornered her later, offering her a coffee and a sympathetic look.) 

Harper was only fifteen years old.

Later, she would tell her mother that surgery just hadn’t interested her. If she had been honest, however, she would have admitted that she didn’t know how to shut off her feelings like the attending and the other surgeons had. She didn’t understand how one could have a relationship with a patient, a rapport, and care without actually _caring_.

And that night, when she was in her bed, surrounded by her pillows—attempting to make a fort of fluff to ward off the heaviness on her chest—she felt the inexplicable urge to call Lexa for a truce. She could almost imagine an older Lexa—the same as the one she knew, but a little taller, less gangly—coming over as soon as Clarke said she needed her.

She wasn’t quite sure what it was she so craved in that moment. Was it the banter, the easy joking between them, the distraction only Lexa had ever been able to provide? Was it just nostalgia, that old desire to have her best friend back resurfacing in a moment of weakness?

And yet, though she couldn’t put a name to what she wanted— _why_ she wanted that specific name—the urge to pull out her phone (to see if Lexa would still answer after all these years) remained long after she finally fell asleep.

_Present day…_

“Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“What you’re doing.”

“I’m not doing anything!”

“I can _feel_ you thinking about asking me. Stop.”

“Asking you? I’m sure I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

“I’m serious, Octavia. No.”

“But it’s not fair! You owe me this. I’ve heard you complain about Lexa since I’ve met you, don’t you think I deserve to know how this love story ends?”

“What? Love? Who—I mean. Psh, love. _Pfft_. Like, ha!”

“Wow, Clarke. Did Lexa kissing you short circuit something or what?”

“And you still wonder why I don’t like telling you things.”

“All right, _fine_. Since you’re being so ridiculous. Answer one question.” Octavia grinned, holding up one finger until Clarke rolled her eyes and nodded.

“Just _one_ ,” she relented.

“All right,” Octavia said, her grin still wide. “This is super important, so answer honestly, okay?” Clarke nodded, frowning a little. “Are you two planning a Spring or Fall wedding?”

Clarke just groaned in response.

//

For whatever reason, when she got into the elevator in the building that her father called his ‘not-so-great home away from home,’ Nia Gelid immediately rushed in as well. (If Clarke was a more suspicious person—and who was she kidding, she _was_ a suspicious person—she would’ve thought Nia had backed her into a literal corner.)

(Nefarious Nia, clearly.) 

“Dr. Griffin,” Nia said, her grip tight as they shook hands. “I wanted to apologize to you.” Clarke could do nothing but frown, waiting for Nia to explain what the hell she was on about as the elevator doors shut, and Clarke was effectively trapped with the woman for six floors. “You’ve been here for several months now, and I unfortunately haven’t spared you any time to properly introduce myself.” She raised her eyebrows quizzically. “You’re Mr. Griffin’s daughter, yes?”

“Yes,” Clarke said shortly, feeling her guards rise at the mention of her father, wondering if this was always how Nia introduced herself: by explicitly _not_ introducing herself. Nia nodded, a sorrowful expression on her face.

“I hope you’re not having a difficult time, spending so much of your day where he once did.” For whatever reason, the comment made Clarke shiver.

“I’m fine, thanks.”

“That’s great,” Nia said, nodding quickly. She placed a hand on Clarke’s shoulder, in what she might’ve thought was a friendly gesture, but what Clarke followed with wide eyes and furrowed brows. “If you need anything, don’t hesitate to let me know, all right?” Clarke nodded, staring at Nia’s hand pointedly until the other woman took the hint and pulled away. Luckily, the longest elevator ride of her life chose that moment to come to an end, the doors sliding open sounding like music to Clarke’s ears. She gave Nia a tight-lipped smile and stepped off the elevator hurriedly, sighing in relief when the doors shut and the elevator went back down, confirming her suspicion that Nia had wanted something from her.

Clarke stood there, feeling vaguely insulted and not really knowing why. In fact, she was so preoccupied with the strange abruptness of Nia’s greeting, chat, and farewell (and if she’d managed to get what she wanted), that she jumped when she felt a hand on her forearm. But when she turned to see Lexa, she could actually feel her traitorous, traitorous (or perhaps not so traitorous, depending on how you looked at it) expression relax.

“Either Nia has a crush on me or she was sizing me up to see if she can take me on in a fight.”

“Nia has some plans brewing, I can feel it,” Lexa said darkly, and Clarke snorted. “What?” she asked, looking a tiny bit miffed.

“You feel plans _brewing_?”

“Plans can brew.”

“Normal people don’t talk like that, Lexa.”

“Well perhaps they should. What’s life if not terribly dramatic and awfully cliché?” Clarke, who was laughing, nearly choked on air at Lexa’s words.

“You think your life is cliché?”

“Well, of course. I fell in love with my best friend. It’s the biggest cliché in the book.” Clarke didn’t think Lexa immediately registered her own words. But as what she said dawned on her, her eyes grew comically wide, and she visibly gulped.

“What?” Clarke asked weakly, her heart thudding rapidly away in her chest, racing some unknown entity in some non-existent competition.

“Well, I mean,” Lexa bravely plowed on, the tips of her ears a deep red, “is it really that much of a surprise?”

“Just to clarify, you’re talking about me, right? Cut off a chunk of your hair, threw ice cream at you, got you in detention every other day, me? Me?”

In response, Lexa rolled her eyes and grabbed Clarke’s hand, pulling her into her office and closing the door. And then, before Clarke could restart her rambling questions, Lexa was kissing her, hands cradling her cheeks, chests pressed flush together.

They didn’t bring up the confession again for the rest of the day, but each time Clarke found herself looking at Lexa, she blushed and her traitorous, traitorous mind started up a new mantra:

_I love you, too._

_Eleven years previously…_

They were arguing (they were _always arguing_ ).

The teachers who’d normally give them detention just rolled their eyes and ignored the two girls, dressed in their cap and gowns, hotly debating something they found terribly important.

“No, the tassel should be on the _right_. Once we get the diploma you can move it to the left.”

“Honestly, Lexa, no one is going to care. Let it go.”

“If no one cares, just do it the right way.”

“Why does your way have to be the right way?”

“Because that’s how it’s always been done! Come on, Clarke, fix your tassel.”

“I like my tassel just the way it is.”

“But it’s not—”

“Fine! Fine. I’ll wear my stupid tassel to the stupid right.” She fixed it, glaring at Lexa pointedly the entire time. “I hope this makes you happy.”

“It does, infinitely.”

“It’s probably a good thing we’re going to different colleges,” she muttered, looking around. In the distance, she saw Wells tackle Murphy to the ground. She wondered what he’d done to finally make the peace-loving Wells join the rest of the school in wanting to punch Murphy at least once. “We’d probably drive each other crazy.” She frowned when Lexa didn’t respond, but before she could turn back to see what was wrong, she felt arms circle around her waist, a face burying itself in her neck.

“I’m going to miss not having my best friend around to drive me crazy,” Lexa whispered, her grip tightening just a little. “I’m going to miss you _so much_.”

She didn’t give Clarke a chance to reply; by the time she opened her mouth (to say something stupid and sappy, like ‘me too,’ or even worse, ‘we’ll always be best friends’) Lexa had released her and was gone. 

(And more than anything else, it pissed Clarke off that Lexa had managed to _yet again_ to get the last word.)

XXX

_Present day…_

“I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s planning a murder.” All she got for her efforts—though admittedly, she hadn’t thought quite _that_ hard about the situation—was an exasperated look. “Oh whatever, as if your ‘it’s a coup’ idea is any better.”

“Mine is a tad more realistic.”

“Realistic is boring,” Clarke muttered, ignoring the smile that appeared on Lexa’s face, annoyed at how easily Lexa made her want to smile back. (It was embarrassing just how low the threshold potential was that initiated the reactionary smile—sometimes she was sure all Lexa had to do was _exist_ , and those voltage-gated ion channels flew open.) “Don’t look so smug.”

“I’m not smug, I’m happy.”

“You think someone in your company is planning a coup and you’re…happy?” (She should’ve been used to this sort of talk, though. She’d been around Lexa for almost five months now—a potential coup was probably the most exciting thing to happen to her in years.)

“You admitted it’s a coup, and besides,” Lexa walked over to where Clarke was standing, trapping her against her desk, smug grin still firmly in place, “you’re here.”

“I’m contractually required to be, you know.”

“So you’re not here for any other reason?” Lexa asked, pressing a kiss to the corner of her jaw.

“I can’t think of any right now.”

“Really?” She pressed forward, arms moving to wrap around Clarke’s waist, pulling her impossibly closer. Kisses trailed down her jaw. “None?”

“Not a one,” Clarke managed to say, tugging on Lexa’s face and _finally_ catching her lips, letting out a little huff of relief when she got a proper kiss.

(So she was lying about not having other reasons to be here. But judging from Lexa’s smug look as she pulled away, she was already fully aware of that fact.)

(Whatever.)

“Are you still coming for dinner tomorrow? Aden is very excited.”

“Well I can’t miss your homemade pizza, can I?”

“Want to know my secret?”

“You buy the pizza frozen?”

“How’d you guess?” she asked with a chuckle, giving Clarke one last kiss on her cheek before stepping back completely and returning to her own desk. “Are you still off Monday?” Clarke blinked at the subject change, but she took it in stride as she collected her things and shouldered her bag.

“I wouldn’t miss a morning of sleeping in for the world.”

“Can I ask you for a favor?”

“You’re asking if you can ask me?”

“Aden’s nanny called earlier,” Lexa says with a roll of her eyes, ignoring Clarke’s comment entirely, “and she said she won’t be able to watch him Monday. I was wondering—or rather hoping—you could…you know.” She was so adorably awkward (and god, did Clarke hate that she was using the word _adorable_ , it was so unlike her) that for a few seconds, Clarke could do nothing but stand there and stare, lips forming a smile as if by habit. “I mean, if you don’t want to, it’s fine. It’s too early for that, yeah? God, sorry, I don’t know—forget I said anything, it was a bad—”

“—calm down, Lexa, you’ll have an aneurysm. I’d love to watch him.”

“Wait, really?”

“Why so surprised? I love you, I love Aden, it’ll be fun.” In response, Lexa got a goofy look on her face, something between a smile and a look of relief, and Clarke could do nothing but laugh. “What?”

“It’s just…we never could do things the right way, could we?” She gave up gathering her things and she walked back over to Clarke, as if she couldn’t bear to be too far away for too long (even if that was just feet and minutes). “We did everything out of order.”

“The right way also seems boring,” Clarke offered, tugging Lexa closer, pressing their foreheads together. “And stop being so surprised when I say I love you. I’ve said it before.”

“Yeah, but usually it sounded a lot like ‘I hate you.’”

“You gotta read between the lines, Lexa. And I hope you know that Aden will be getting his fill of chicken nuggets come Monday.”

“Clarke,” Lexa said, arms snaking around her waist, her tone soft and full of something that made Clarke’s heart pound against her ribs, her entire chest vibrating from the impact. “I hate you.” Clarke snorted, unable to help it.

“And I love you, you dork.”

//

“You guys became awfully domestic in a very short time,” Wells commented lightly, stealing Clarke’s beer. “You didn’t listen to my advice, but you know, I’d like to state for the record: I told you so.”

“You and Raven have made your point,” Clarke said, grabbing another beer and groaning when Raven plucked it out of her hand. “I get it. I was dense in high school and denser in college. Octavia was right, I was emotionally stunted. But now it’s all good.” 

“It’s not a done deal until you’re married,” Octavia said, throwing herself on the couch, her head on Lincoln’s lap. He smiled down at her, running his fingers through her hair, and Clarke pretended to gag at the sight. “But yeah, Wells is right. We told you so.”

“Is it a big deal that she’s letting me watch Aden?”

“By yourself?”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck, yeah, Clarke,” Raven whistled, looking impressed. “That’s a big deal. I’m so fucking proud of you, going after what you want and not wasting all our time with angst and denial.”

“I’m still surprised that she admitted it aloud. Like, without a panic attack or being forced to speak under duress,” Lincoln commented softly, smiling when Octavia snorted.

“Shockingly, I’m standing right here,” Clarke said, deciding the beer wasn’t nearly strong enough to deal with the ribbing and teasing.

“You guys have known each other for a long time. It makes sense that you’re comfortable with each other. I think it’d be weirder if you weren’t like this.”

“Like what?”

“You know, _couple-y_. Committed.”

“I don’t…you know what? I don’t care what you losers think. I did this all on my own. The only person I need to be grateful for is _me_.”

“And you know, Lexa and Aden,” Wells added with a grin. Clarke rolled her eyes.

“Right, them too.”

//

“And then, and then,” he heaved, his eyes wide, hair matted with sweat, “I _took_ it from him. And I threw it the furthest and we _won_.”

“That, Aden, is the most impressive baseball story I’ve ever heard,” Clarke said, nodding seriously. “We have an annual Griffin Family Baseball Game. How about you come play for my team?”

“Really?”

“Of course, I don’t think Cousin Trish and her boisterous husband would stand a chance against us.” Aden beamed, jumping out of his chair and racing towards his room, not bothering with an explanation as to what he was doing. Clarke smiled after him, feeling rather proud of herself.

“Isn’t Trish three months pregnant?” Lexa asked, sticking the frozen pizzas into the oven before leaning against her counter, eyes on Clarke. “Would it be a fair game?”

“She’ll have had the kid by then. Besides, Trish has always been a sore winner, it’ll be great to have a chance to deflate that ego of hers.” She frowned, just noticing the weirdest part of Lexa’s comment. “Wait. How do you know Trish?”

“I went to a few of those Griffin baseball games. Trish and I are friendly.”

“No way.”

“Yes way. You haven’t been going to the games since high school. Your dad invited me in your place.”

“You think you know a person,” she muttered, shaking her head in mock offense. “He must have wanted to fill the hole in his heart where I used to be and you were the best he could do.”

“I dunno. He told me I was a better pitcher.”

“Now that’s just blasphemy.” She tapped her finger against the countertop, staring at Lexa with raised eyebrows. “By the way, you should teach your son the rules to baseball. He can’t go his whole life thinking what he did earlier was right.”

“You were the one that took him to the park.”

“He threw the ball _out_ of the park, Lexa. And not in the good way. He knows that’s not what outfielder means, right?”

“You should take him to play more often. He’ll catch on eventually.”

“Wait a second,” Clarke muttered, ignoring the brilliant pun Lexa just threw on her lap. “You’re trying to get me to spend more time with him, aren’t you? First with the cancelling nanny and now this.”

“Would it be so wrong if I want you and Aden to become close?”

“Of course not. But you don’t have to trick me into it,” Clarke laughed, walking around the counter and pulling Lexa into a hug from behind, chin resting on Lexa’s shoulder. “I want to spend time with him. I swear. You don’t have to force it.” For a moment, Lexa was stiff in her arms, but then she relaxed, leaning back into Clarke’s embrace, her eyes fluttering shut.

“Does it scare you?” Lexa asked softly. “How easy it’s been? How…permanent this all seems?”

“No,” Clarke answered back without hesitation. “It’s you. With you, things always just seemed…inevitable.”

“Inevitable? Seriously?” She turned around in Clarke’s arms, pressing their foreheads together. “Where do you get inevitable from the time I told your parents you were smoking out by the bleachers?” Clarke’s mouth fell open at the confession, her brows furrowing.

“That was _you_? All these years I’ve blamed Wells for that.” She grinned when Lexa looked slightly guilty, kissing the guilt away and pulling Lexa closer. “In hindsight, you prevented what could’ve been a lifelong addiction by telling my parents about the cigarettes. And besides, what kind of message does a smoker-doctor send?”

“I mean, when you put it like that…”

“See? Inevitable.”

“So you’re not scared?”

“Are you kidding? I’m terrified. The other day I was looking at scholarships at my alma mater. You know, for Aden. Then I remembered he’s _five_.”

“That’s outrageous, Clarke.”

“I mean, I know. That’s why—”

“What makes you think he’d go to your alma mater?”

“Oh. _Oh._ For your information, he’d practically be a guaranteed a spot as the kid of an alumni. Something about legacies or whatever.”

“So Aden is your kid now?”

“Have I mentioned I’m terrified?”

“Have I mentioned that I love you?” she asked, eyes locked on Clarke’s lips. Her hands locked behind Clarke’s neck, a grin appearing on her face as she rubbed mindless patterns into Clarke’s skin with her thumbs.

“Maybe once or twice. It can stand repeating.”

“Can we go practice right now?” Aden shouted from his room, and Clarke and Lexa reluctantly separated with one last kiss, Clarke turning to watch Aden rush back to the kitchen while Lexa turned her attention to the frozen pizza. (Though likely, it wasn’t so frozen anymore.)

“I think it’s a little late right now,” Clarke laughed, looking at the baseball and mitt in Aden’s hands. “But we’re spending Monday together. So definitely then.”

“Do you promise?” Aden asked very seriously, his eyes narrowed, clearly searching for any hesitance. Clarke laughed again.

“Yes, I promise.” At her response, Aden nodded approvingly and clambered onto his chair, hands folded on the table, ready for his pizza.

Long after Aden had gotten his two slices and perfectly measured out cup of juice (“He can’t have too much sugar, Clarke, you’re a doctor, you should know that,” Lexa had explained patiently), Clarke pressed a lingering kiss to Lexa’s cheek and had smiled at her.

“I love you, by the way,” she said, watching as Lexa’s cheeks flushed, as her eyes focused on her food. And not that she was a cliché or anything (though, admittedly, she knew she was), but all Clarke could think about was how she wanted to tell Lexa those three little words that meant so much every single day for the rest of their lives.

(Later, she’d realize that was when the terror just slipped away.)

//

Spending time with Aden was about exactly as stressful as Clarke had imagined it to be.

(Which is to say, she thought she was quite lucky to have survived it.)

First of all, the kid—quite unlike his mother—was the sort person who leaped first and then wondered if perhaps he shouldn’t have. She first became aware of this tendency when Aden noticed a wide muddy section of the park, and rather than step around it like anyone else, he stomped right through. (And after that, when she bought him lunch, he asked for hot sauce, and before she could stop him, he’d made his food practically inedible—though, he powered through it like a champ.)

Second of all (and once again, _quite_ unlike his mother), Aden was _chatty_. She wasn’t quite sure he stopped to take a breath. Some stories—like the one about the time Lexa had lost him in a grocery store and had cried and wouldn’t let him out of her sight for three days—were funny, and Clarke filed them away for future reference. Other stories—like the many, _many_ he had about Costia—just made her sad, both at what Lexa had lost and the fact that it was a side to her Clarke had never seen. (And if she was slightly jealous—just _slightly_ —it was no big deal. She liked Costia. _Seriously_.)

But the worst of it was when Aden got tired after his bath and he curled next to her on the couch, eyes drooping despite his best efforts to pay attention to the movie she’d put on for him. It was all right initially, but then Aden leaned into her, holding onto her arm, his breathing coming out slowly and evenly as he fell asleep. ( _Don’t break Aden’s heart_ , Lexa had said. No one had warned her it may have been _her_ heart that was at risk of growing so much that it burst.)

(Out of love and affection. Obviously.)

And when Lexa arrived home that night (was it strange that she considered Lexa’s home _her_ home, or was that another cliché she could chalk up to the universe just screwing with her?), she found Clarke and Aden asleep on the couch, the movie long since forgotten.

(And the weirdest part of it all was that it felt totally normal for all three of them.)

//

“ _What did you do to my son?_ ” (Clarke’s heart may or may not have fluttered when she heard Lexa refer to Aden as her son so easily, as if it was no longer something she agonized over.)

(It did, it definitely did. It fluttered away, like a damn butterfly.)

“Excuse me?” She juggled her bag, keys, groceries, and phone, sighing in relief when she managed to get her door open. She dropped her things as she closed the door behind her, and made a beeline to her couch. “I knew the peanut butter and jelly sandwich dinner would come back to haunt me. Did he tell you? He promised not to tell you.”

“ _You fed him peanut butter jelly for dinner?_ ”

“Oh, he didn’t tell you…so…what did I do?”

“ _You tell me_ ,” Lexa asked, and Clarke heard a thud from the other line, as if Lexa had just knocked her head into a door. “ _Aden hasn’t said a word to me since he woke up this morning._ ”

“Wait, not a single word?”

“ _No. I asked him how his day was when I got home, he didn’t answer. I asked if he wanted Chinese for dinner, and he didn’t answer. I asked if he wanted a story before bedtime, and he_ didn’t answer _._ ”

“Wow, this is serious.”

“ _I know_.”

“So what’s wrong with him?”

“ _That’s why I’m calling you, Clarke. What’d you do?_ ”

“Nothing! We played catch, he got muddy, he had so much hot sauce I’m surprised he can still feel his tongue, we chatted, I made him dinner, and fell asleep while watching that movie.” She paused, shifting her phone to her other ear. “There was a bath somewhere there too. Because he was covered in mud.” She yawned, rubbing her eyes and frowning a little. “I did mention the mud, right? Because there was a lot of mud.”

“ _Clarke, he’s not talking. What could’ve happened between you leaving last night and this morning?_ ”

“Try asking him that.”

“ _I did. He wouldn’t answer._ ” She paused, and the thud came again, as if she’d once again knocked her head against a door. “ _What if he’s sick?_ ”

“Relax, Lexa. He’s not sick.”

“ _How do you know?_ ”

“People deal with emotions in different ways,” Clarke said, getting to her feet reluctantly, gathering the groceries she’d tossed to the floor carelessly, and began to put them away. “I get loud when I’m angry or upset or sad. I can’t shut up about it, and eventually I get it out of my system.”

“ _I hear a but coming_.”

“Right. _But_ you’re different. You get quiet, not loud.” Lexa didn’t respond, which made Clarke think she wasn’t convinced. “Like, remember when Jasper said those things that hurt your feelings? I punched him and you kind of…shut everyone out. And Aden, for better or worse, is a lot like you.”

“ _So you think he’s hurt?_ ”

“God, I hope not. Maybe he’s angry. Want me to see if he’ll talk to me?”

“ _I mean…do you think that’ll work?_ ”

“There’s only one way to find out. Give the phone to Aden, Lexa.” Lexa didn’t answer. Instead, Clarke heard shuffling, then the sound of a door being firmly shut.

“ _Clarke?_ ” came Aden’s soft voice after a minute, and Clarke bit her lip, leaning against her dinner table, practically holding her breath.

“Hey kiddo. I hear you haven’t had a good day.”

“ _You didn’t come today,_ ” he said after a long pause, and Clarke felt the strangest sensation in her chest—something between a swoop and a fall and it was wildly uncomfortable. She had expected a lot of things. Maybe that Lexa hadn’t given him ice cream for breakfast or perhaps that his nanny wasn’t nearly as fun as Clarke was. But the fact that he was upset because he _missed_ her? Well, that just made her feel like crap. 

“I had work, Aden. Would it make you feel better if I said I’ll see you in a few days?”

“ _How long is a few days?_ ”

“Probably by the end of the week. Can you wait that long?”

“ _So not tomorrow?_ ”

“Sorry, bud. Not tomorrow. How does Friday night sound?”

“ _That’s in…two days?_ ”

“Three. Can you wait that long?”

“ _Yes,_ ” he said quickly. “ _I’m giving the phone back now._ ” Before she had the chance to say goodbye Lexa’s voice was in her ear.

“ _He talked to you._ ”

“He missed me,” Clarke bragged, trying to calm the racing of her heart.

“ _He’s attached, you know. It’s remarkably easy to get attached to you._ ”

“That good, right?”

“ _Inconvenient, really._ ” She heaved a breath, and Clarke could imagine the way she was running her fingers through her hair, the way she was straightening her glasses. “ _I guess we can never break up now._ ”

“Oh, were we together?”

“ _Cute, Clarke. Maybe don’t play coy with a tired and annoyed mom, though._ ”

“You’re no fun. By the way, I’m coming over Friday night. It’s non-negotiable. I promised Aden already.”

“ _You’re welcome anytime_ ,” Lexa said softly, not joking back like Clarke had expected, her voice full of a fondness that made Clarke’s chest and cheeks warm. “ _I better go. Aden wants a story now._ ”

“Okay. I love you, by the way. I didn’t get to say that today.”

“ _You’re such a sap_ , _I hate it_ ,” Lexa said, though Clarke could hear her smile. “ _See you tomorrow._ ”

//

“Ms. Green! Long time no see!”

“Well, this marks the end of the blissful quiet, Dr. Griffin. I suppose you sorted things out at the hospital?”

“You know, I put in a lot of effort into this not-a-job. The least you could do is be nicer.”

“And while I’m being nice, Nia is using the fact that you haven’t been able to come by for several days in a row to claim that the agreement is null and void.”

“Wait…what?”

“Hasn’t Miss Woods told you? She told me she told you.”

“No, Miss Woods failed to mention this little thing. Can she lose my dad’s shares? Oh god. Will _Nia_ get them? I never actually read the things I signed. Is that bad? I feel like I probably should’ve read them.”

“I’m not your lawyer, Dr. Griffin.”

“Yes, but you’re _a_ lawyer. Same thing, really.”

“Nia is likely merely attempting to create doubt surrounding your presence here. She has also made a few rather unsubtle comments about the nature of your relationship with Miss Woods.”

“What sort of comments?”

“The sort that suggest that Miss Woods is cultivating a relationship with you to ensure she obtains your father’s shares at the end of the agreement. This is, naturally, untrue.”

“Right. Naturally.”

“You look stressed, Dr. Griffin. You’re not actually worried about it, are you?”

“No. I just…has Lexa heard these rumors?”

“No.”

“Excellent. How about we keep it between us then?”

“But I’m—”

“—wonderfully understanding and patient? Yes, I know.”

“Unless you choose not to approve of what Miss Woods has been doing here, no one can stop this. Not even Nia.”

“Right. I know that. But Lexa doesn’t need more Nia-induced stress.”

“Dr. Griffin—”

“Great talk, Ms. Green. Scintillating as always.”

//

Honestly, she thought she had a pretty good handle on her emotions.

(Spoiler, she didn’t. Of course she didn’t.)

( _But_ , she lasted a _few_ days. It was a win in her book.)

“Right, so, I know it isn’t true, but I’d like to hear you deny it anyway, for peace of mind, but you’re not just schmoozing me to make sure my dad’s shares go to you, are you?” All she got, quite rightly, was a confused look from Lexa. They were sitting on a park bench, watching Aden chase around Lexa’s neighbor’s dog. “I’m not hearing the immediate denial I was looking for.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Even if I wanted to manipulate you into giving over the shares, I wouldn’t do it by confessing that I love you.”

“Excellent, that’s all I wanted to hear.”

“How long have you been stressing about this?”

“A few days.”

“Wow.”

“I know, I’m impressed by my restraint as well,” Clarke grinned, hooking an arm around Lexa’s, pulling her closer. She leaned her head on Lexa’s shoulder, totally not breathing in the faint smell of Lexa’s perfume. (God, but _spoiler_ , she totally was.)

“Were you actually worried?” Lexa asked after a long minute, and Clarke tangled their fingers together.

“Not a bit.”

“Seriously? Not even the slightest bit of doubt?”

“Not even a shred.”

“You don’t think I’m capable of it?” Lexa asked, sounding vaguely hurt. Clarke laughed, bringing Lexa’s hand up to her lips and kissing it.

“Sorry, love. But no. You’re really not.” She paused briefly, thinking. “Like, think about the worst things we did in high school. Not once did you play on feelings—it was always stupid stuff like homework and debate club.”

“But you told me I wasn’t a good kisser because I chickened out with Maggie. That was very hurtful.”

“Would it make you feel better if I told you that now that I have first-hand experience I can say for a fact that you’re an _excellent_ kisser?”

“Slightly. I suppose.” She tried to pretend to huff, but when Clarke smiled up at her, her lips pulled up into a grin, and she rolled her eyes. “I take it Indra is telling you these rumors?”

“That obvious?”

“I don’t understand the relationship you have with her. I can’t tell if she hates you or if she’s ready to adopt you.”

“Everyone loves me.”

“It’s unnatural.”

“She told me not to worry about the Nia stuff. But…is there anything I _should_ worry about?”

“We should probably spend less time kissing in the office. And you should spend more time with others. Ask around. Be objective.”

“But I’m not objective. My dad wanted you to have the shares, and you’re going to get them.” She paused thoughtfully, biting her lip. “How much do you want to bet he did this when he found out he was sick? Made up the whole arrangement to butt into my life one more time?” She knew she wasn’t fooling Lexa with her false cheer, and when Lexa merely stared at her with understanding eyes, grip tightening just a little on her hand, she was glad that Lexa wasn’t letting her get away with lying either.

“I for one am very glad for his interference.”

“He always loved you, you know.”

“Everyone loves me,” Lexa joked, lightening the mood. But when she leaned over and pressed a kiss to Clarke’s temple, it was obvious she knew exactly what was going through Clarke’s head. “You only have a few more weeks until we’re not contractually obligated to spend every day together.”

“I know.”

“So what’s the plan, Griffin?” (She sounded unsure and nervous and anxious and it was _adorable_. And one day—not now, but one day soon—Clarke would say the word out loud.)

“Well, the Griffin family baseball game is in a few months. And Aden’s birthday is right after that. And then there’s the anniversary of the day you tossed purple paint all over me. So we’ll have reasons to get together.”

“If we must,” Lexa added seriously, unable to help her grin when Clarke kissed her hand again. “There’s also National Pancake Day.”

“Oh yeah. We definitely can’t miss that.”

“And I have to meet your friends.”

“Right, because I met Costia. Fair is fair.”

“And I’m sure I’ll need a doctor in the near future. You know kids. Always falling and eating things they shouldn’t.” Simultaneously, Lexa and Clarke looked over to Aden, who was now playing fetch with the neighbor’s dog, the neighbor sitting rather gratefully on an empty bench, a smile on her face.

“I may need a lawyer in the near future.”

“I see how it is, you’d choose Indra over me?”

“Sorry, love, but Indra has been _so_ supportive.”

“So I guess we’ll be seeing quite a bit of each other,” Lexa confirmed, ignoring the comment about Indra. “It’ll be like nothing has changed.”

“Right. Except when I come to your office, it’ll be for a quickie.”

“ _Clarke_.”

“Oh come on, as if you weren’t thinking it.”

(And if they argued over it for another ten minutes, well…it was for old time’s sake, they _had_ to.)


End file.
